International THt^oLOGicAL Library
A HISTOIIY /J ~~ '
,<^
OP \'?4
THE REFORMATION'
BT
THOMAS M. LINDSAY, D.D., LL.D.
PRIXCIPAL, THE UNITED FREE CHURCH
COLLEGE, GLASGOW
II
THE REF,ORMATION IN SWITZERLAND, FRANCE
THE NETHERLANDS, SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND
THE ANABAPTIST AND SOCINIAN MOVEMENTS
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION
WITH MAP OF THE REFORMATION AND
COUNTER-BEFORMA.TION (1520-1580).
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1907
[H^^Ki
PREFACE.
In this volume I have endeavoured to fulfil the promise
made in the former one to describe the Reformed Churches,
the Anabaptist and Socinian movements and the Counter-
reformation in the sixteenth century.
It has been based on a careful study of contemporary
sources of information, and no important fact has been
recorded for which there is not contemporary evidence.
Full use has been made of work done by predecessors in
the same field. The sources and the later books consulted
have been named at the beginning of each chapter ; but
special reference is due to the writings of Professor Pollard
on the reigns pf Henry viii. and Edward vi., and to those
of MM. Lemonier and Mariejol for the history of
Protestantism in France. The sources consulted are,
for the most part, printed in Calendars of State Papers
issued by the various Governments of Europe; or in the
correspondence of prominent men and women of the six-
teenth century, edited and published for Historical and
Archaeological Societies; but the Calendar of State Papers,
Domestic, relating to the reigns of Edward vi., Mary,
and Elizabeth, is little more than a brief account of
the contents of the documents, and has to be supple-
mented by reference to the original documents in the
Record Office.
The field covered in this volume is so extensive that
Vlll PREFACE
the accounts of the rise and progress of tiie Eeformation
in the various countries included had to be very much
condensed. I have purposely given a larger space to the
beginnings of each movement, believing them to be less
known and more deserving of study. One omission must
be noted. Nothing has been said directly about the
Eeformed Churches in Bohemia, Hungary, and the
neighbouring lands. It would have been easy to devote
a few pages to the subject ; but such a brief description
would have been misleading. The rise, continuance, and
decline of these Churches are so inseparably connected
with the peculiar social and political conditions of the
countries, that no adequate or informing account of them
could be given without largely exceeding the hmits of
space at my disposal.
After the volume had been fully printed, and addition
or alteration was impossible, two important documents
bearing on subjects discussed came into my hands too
late for references in the text.
I have found that the Library of the Technical College
in Glasgow contains a copy, probably unique, of the famous
Hymu-book of the Brethren published at Ulm in 1538.
It is entitled : Ein huhsch neu Gesanghuch darinnen
hegrieffen die Kirchenordniing und Geseng die ziir Zants
Kron und Fidneck in Behem, von der Christlichen Bruder-
schafft den Piccarden^ die hishero filr Uncliristen tend Ketzer
gehalten, gehrancht und teglich Gott zum Ehren gesungen
werden. Gedruckt zu Ulm bey Hans Varnier. An.
MDXXXViii. I know of a copy of much later date in
Niirnberg ; but of no perfect copy of this early impression.
It is sufficient to say that the book confirms what I have
said of the character of the religion of the Brethren.
Then in December 1906, Senor Henriques pub-
lished at Lisbon the authentic records of the trial of
PREFACE ix
George Buchanan and two fellow professors in the
Coimbra College before the Inquisition. These records
show that the prosecution had not been instigated bv the
Jesuits, as was generally conjectured, but was due to the
malice of a former Principal of the College. The state-
ment made on p. 556 has therefore to be corrected.
The kindness of the publishers has "provided an
historical map, which I trust will be found useful. It
gives, I think for the first time, a representation to
the eye of the wide extent of the Anabaptist movement.
The red bars denote districts where contemporary docu-
ments attest the existence of Anabaptist communities.
At least four maps, representing successive periods, would
be needed to show with exactness the shifting boundaries
of the various confessions ; one map can only give the
general results.
My thanks are again due to my colleague, Dr. Denney,
and to another friend, for the care they have taken in
revising the proof sheets, and for many valuable
sucrojestions.
THOMAS M. LINDSAY.
Jaimaryt 1907.
Vm PREFACE
the accounts of the rise and progress of the Eeformation
in the various countries included had to be very much
condensed. I have purposely given a larger space to the
beginnings of each movement, believing them to be less
known and more deserving of study. One omission must
be noted. Nothing has been said directly about the
Eeformed Churches in Bohemia, Hungary, and the
neighbouring lands. It would have been easy to devote
a few pages to the subject ; but such a brief description
would have been misleading. The rise, continuance, and
decline of these Churches are so inseparably connected
with the peculiar social and political conditions of the
countries, that no adequate or informing account of them
could be given without largely exceeding the hmits of
space at my disposal.
After the volume had been fully printed, and addition
or alteration was impossible, two important documents
bearing on subjects discussed came into my hands too
late for references in the text.
I have found that the Library of the Technical College
in Glasgow contains a copy, probably unique, of the famous
Hymn-book of the Brethren published at Ulm in 1538.
It is entitled : Ein hubsch neu Gesanghuch darinnen
hegrieffen die Kirchenordnung und Geseng die ziir LanU
Kron und Fulneck in Beliem, von der Christlichen Bi'uder-
schafft den Ficcarden, die hishero filr Uncliristen und Ketzer
gehalten, gehraucht und tegllch Gott zum Ehren gesungen
werden. Gedruckt zu Ulm bey Hans Varnier. An.
MDXXXViii. I know of a copy of much later date in
Niirnberg ; but of no perfect copy of this early impression.
It is sufficient to say that the book confirms what I have
said of the character of the religion of the Brethren.
Then in December 1906, Senor Henriques pub-
lished at Lisbon the authentic records of the trial of
PREFACE ix
George Buchanan and two fellow professors in the
Coimbra College before the Inquisition. These records
show that the prosecution had not been instigated bv the
Jesuits, as was generally conjectured, but was due to the
malice of a former Principal of the College. The state-
ment made on p. 556 has therefore to be corrected.
The kindness of the publishers has provided an
historical map, which I trust will be found useful. It
gives, I think for the first time, a representation to
the eye of the wide extent of the Anabaptist movement.
The red bars denote districts where contemporary docu-
ments attest the existence of Anabaptist communities.
At least four maps, representing successive periods, would
be needed to show with exactness the shifting boundaries
of the various confessions ; one map can only give the
general results.
My thanks are again due to my colleague, Dr. Denney,
and to another friend, for the care they have taken in
revising the proof sheets, and for many valuable
suggestions.
THOMAS M. LINDSAY.
JanvAiryf 1907*
i
CONTENTS
BOOK III.
THE REFORMED CHURCHES.
CHAPTER I.
Introduction.
§ 1. The limitations of the Peace of Augsburg .
§ 2. The Reformation outside Germany ...
§ 3. The Reformed type of Doctrine ....
§ 4. The Reformed ideal of Ecclesiastical Government
§ 5. The influence of Humanism on the Reformed Churches
§ 6. What the Reformed Churches owed to Luther
§ 7. National Characteristics as they affected the Reformation
PAOR
1
5
6
7 .
9
13
18
CHAPTER II. .
•The Reformation in Switzerland under Zwinqli.
§ 1. The political condition of Switzerland
§ 2. Zwingli's youth and education
§ 3. Zwingli at Glarus and at Einsiedeln
§ 4. Zwingli in Zurich . . - ' .
§ 5. The Public Disputations
§ 6. The Reformation outside Zurich .
In Basel — Oecolampadius and William
In Bern— The Ten Theses .
In Appenzell and other Cantons .
The Christian Civic League (Protestant).
(Romanist) ....
§ 7. The Sacramental Controversy
Farel
The Christian Uniun
21
24
27
29
33
38
38
40
46
48
62
Xll
CONTENTS
CHAPTER III.
The Reformation in Geneva under Calvin
§ 1. Geneva .
§ 2. The Reformation in Western Switzerland
Farel and his band of evangelists .
§ 3. Farel in Geneva
Bern, Freibourg, and Geneva
The Public Disputation and the Thkses Evangeliquei:
§ 4. Calvin : Youth and education
Christiance Helujionis liistitutio . . ,
§ 5. Calvin with Farel in Geneva
Articuli de regimine ecdesice — Discipline in the Church
The theologians of Eastern Switzerland and exconim
tion
Calvin and Farel banished from Geneva
Calvin recalled to Geneva — Les ordoniiances ecclesiastiq
I'j^ylise de Geneve
What Calvin did for Geneva . • •
nica-
its de
PAOR
61
66
71
74
77
85
92
99
102
105
110
120
128
131
CHAPTER IV.
§
§
§
§
§ 10.
§11.
§12.
§ 13.
§ 14.
§ 15.
§16.
§17.
§18.
§ 19.
The RefoRmatjon in France.
Marguerite d'Angouleme and the "group of Meaux "
Attempts to repress the movement lor Reform .
Change in the character of the movement for Reform
Calvin and his influence in France
Persecution under Henry ii.
The organisation of the French Protestant Church
Reaction against persecution
The higher aristocracy won for the Reformation in F
France ruled by the Guises.
Catherine de' Medici becomes Regent . ,
The Conference at Poissy ....
The massacre at Vassy ....
The beginning of the Wars of Religion
The mas^sacre of St. Bartholomew
The Huguenot resistance after the ma.Si«acre
The beginnings of the League
The League becomes disloyal
The day of Barricades ....
The King takes refuge with the Huguenots
ance
136
144
151
153
161
164
169
171
173
178
186
189
191
198
200
205
207
211
214
CONTENTS
XIU
§ 20. The Declaration of Henry iv.
§ 21. Henry iv. becomes a Roman Catholic
§ 22. The Edict of Nantes . , ,
PACK
217
219
221
CHAPTER V.
The Reformation in the Netherlands.
§ 1. The political situation .
§ 2. The beginnings of the Reformation
§ 3. The Anabaptists in the Netherlands
§ 4. Philip of Spain and the Netherlands
§ 5. William of Orange
224
228
234
240
254
CHAPTER VI.
The Reformation in Scotland.
Preparation for the Reformation .
Lollard y in Scotland .....
Lutheran writings in Scotland
The Beginnings of tlie Reformation
George Wishart
John Knox, early work in Scotland
Knox in England, in Switzerland, and at Frankfurt
The " Band subscrived by the Lords." " The Congregation
Knox's final return to Scotland
Knox and Cecil. The English alliance
The Scots Confession of Faith . . ...
The First Book of Discipline, or the Policie and Discipline
Church. The Book of Common Order
Return of Queen Mary to Scotland . . . •
of the
274
276
279
282
284
285
286
289
293
294
302
304
309
BOOK IV.
THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
The Church of Henhy viii.
Influences in England ma.ang for the Reformation.. Lollardy,
Hatred of the Clergy, Ftumanism, Luther . . . .31;
XIV
CONTENTS
The marriage of Henry and Catharine of Aragon, and the doubts
entertained of its validity 322
The Revolt of England from Roman jurisdiction . . . 325
The Ten Articles and the Injunctions ...... 333
The Bishops^ Book, and its teaching ...... 336
The English Bible .337
Projected alliance with the German Protestants .... 340
The visitation and dissolution of monasteries .... 343
The Six Articles and the Kiiig's Book . . . . . . 347
CHAPTER II.
The Reformation under Edward vi.
The hijunctions and the Articles of Inquiry .
The condition of the English Clergy .
The First Prayer-Book of King Edward VI, ,
Continental Reformers in England
The Second Prayer-Book of King Edward VI.
Beginnings of the controversy about Vestments
351
353
356
358
361
364
CHAPTER III.
The Reaction under Mary.
The beginnings of Queen Mary's reign
The restoration of England to the papal obedience
The Injunctions and the Visitation
The revival of heresy laws and the persecutions .
The martyrdom of Cranmer .....
368
371
374
375
378
CHAPTER IV.
The Settlement under Elizabeth.
Elizabeth resolves to be a Protestant. The political situation . 385
The Act of Supretiiacy and the Act of Uniformity . . . 390
The Elizabethan I'rayer-Book 396
The Act of Uniformity and the Rubric about Ornaments . . 402
The dealings with recalcitrant clergymen 408
The Thirty-Nine Articles 411
How Discipline was regulated 417
The character of the Elizabethan settlement .... 418
CONTENTS
XV
BOOK V.
AXABAPTI8M AND SOCIXIANLSM.
CHAPTER I.
Revival op MEDiiEVAL Anti-Ecclesiastical Movements.
I'AQB
Mediaeval Nonconformists 421
The Anti-Trinitarians 424
CHAPTER II.
Anabaptism.
The medisevel roots of Anabaptism
Anabaptism organisation
Varieties of teaching among the Anabaptists
Anabaptists object to a State Church .
The Anabaptists in Switzerland. Their persecution
Anabaptist hymnology . . .
The Kingdom of God in Mlinster
Bernhard Rothmann and his work in Miinster .
Dutch Anabaptists in Miinster ....
Polygamy in Miinster . , . , •
430
434
437
442
445
449
451
452
459
463
CHAPTER III.
80CINIANISM.
Lelio and Fausto Sozzini . . ... . . . 470
Socinianism took its rise from a criticism of Doctrines ' . . 473
Socinianism and the Scoto-Pelagian theology .... 474
The doctrines of God, the Work of Christ and the Church . . 477
BOOK VI.
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION.
. CHAPTER I.
The Necessity of a Reformation of some sort universally
admitted.
Variety of complaints against the mediaeval Church .
Formation of local churches
484
487
XVI
CONTENTS
CHAPTER II.
The Spanish Conception of a Reformation.
?5 1. The religious condition of Spain ....
§ 2. The relormation under Ximenes
§ 3. The Spaniards and Luther
§ 4. Pope Adrian vi. and the Spanish Reformation . ,
PAOB
488
490
493
496
CHAPTER III.
Italian liberal Roman Catholics and their Conception of a
Reformation.
§ 1. The religious condition of Italy .
§ 2. Italian Roman Catholic Reformers
§ 3. Cardinals Contarini and Caraffa .
§ 4. The Conference at Regensburg
501
504
513
519
CHAPTER IV.
Ignatius Loyola and the Company op Jesus.
§ 1 . At Manresa 525
§ 2. Ignatius at Paris. The ecclesiastical situation at Paris . 533
§ 3. The Spirit oal Exercises ........ 538
§ 4. Ignatius in Italy 545
§ 5. The Society of Jesus . . , , / , , . 549
CHAPTER V.
The Council of Trent.
$ 1. The assembling of the Council
§ 2. Procedure at the Council
Restatement of Doctrines
The Doctrine of the Rule of Faith
Original Sin and Justification
The second meeting of the Council
The third meeting of the Council
The position of the Pope strengthened
§ 3
564
568
570
572
575
581
587
593
CONTENTS Xvii
CHAPTER VI.
The Inquisition and the Index.
§ 1. The Inquisition m Spam 597
3 2. The Inquisition in Italy (.jqq
^ 3. The Index of prohibited books . . . ... (5Q2
§ 4. The Society of Jesus and the Counter- Reformation . . 606
BOOK III.
THE REFORMED CHURCHES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
§ 1. The Limitations of the Peace of Augsburg.
i The Eeligious Peace of Augsburg (1555) secured the legal
j recognition of the Eeformation within the Holy Eoman
■ Empire, and consequently within European polity. - Hence-
forward States, which declared through their responsible
rulers that they meant to live after the religion described
in the Augsdurg Confession, were admitted to the comity of
nations, and the Pope was legally and practically debarred
from excommunicating th^m, from . placing them under
interdict, and from inviting obedient neighbouring potentates
to conquer and dispossess their sovereigns. The Bishop of
Eome could no longer, according to the recognised custom
of the Holy Eoman Emphre, launch a Bull against a
Lutheran prince and expect to have its execution enforced
as in earlier days. The Popes were naturally slow to see
this, and had to be reminded of the altered state of matters
more than once.^
1 The fierce old Pontiff, Paul iv., declared in a Bull (Feb. 15, 1559) that
the mere fact of heresy in princes deprived them of all lawful power ; but he
named no one. When his successor proposed^ in 1563, to excommunicate
Elizabeth of England by name simply as a Protestant, he was taken to task
sharply by the Emperor Ferdinand ; and the Queen was finally excommuni-
cated in 1570 as a partaker ' ' in the atrocious mysteries of Calvinism," and as
such outside the Peace of Augsburg.
,**
2 INTRODUCTION
\ Of course, the exalted Komanist powers, civil and
I ecclesiastical, never meant this settlement to be lasting.
' They intrigued secretly among themselves, and fought openly,
against it. The final determined effort to overthrow it
was that hideous nightmare which goes by the name of
the Thirty Years' War, mainly caused by the determination
of the Jesuits that by the help of God and the devil, for
that, as Carlyle has remarked, was the peculiarity of the
plan, all Germany must be brought back to the obedience of
Holy Stepmother Church, and to submission to the Supreme
Headship of the Holy Eoman Empire — the Supreme Head-
ship becoming more and more shadowy as the years passed.
The settlement lasted, however, and remains in general
outline until the present.
But the Eeligious Peace of Augsburg did not end the
revolt against Eome which was simmering in every land
in Western Europe. It made no provision for the multitude
of believers in the Augsburg Confession, whose princes, for
conscience' sake or for worldly policy, remained steadfast
to Eome, save that they were to be permitted to emigrate
to territories where the rulers were of the same faith as
theirs. These Lutherans were to be found in every part
of Germany, and were very abundant in the Duchy of
Austria. The statement of Faber, the Bishop of Vienna,
that the only good Catholics in that city were himself
and the Archduke Ferdinand, was, of course, rhetorical ;
but it is a proof of the numbers of the followers of
Luther.^
X It chained irrevocably to the Eomanist creed, by the
clause called the ecclesiastical reservation, not merely the
people, but the rulers in the numerous ecclesiastical
principalities scattered all over Germany. This pro-
vision secured that if an ecclesiastical prince adopted the
Lutheran faith, he was to be deprived of his principality.
^ In the Atlm zur Kirchengeschkhte by Heussi and Mulert (Tubingen,
1905), there is an attempt to represent to the eye the presence of German
Protestants outside the territories of the Lutheran princes ; Map x. Zur
Geschichte der dcutschen Reformation nnd Gegenreformation,
LIMITATIONS OF THE PEACE OF AUGSBURG 3
It is probable that this provision did more than anytbincr
else to secure for the Eomanists the position they now have
in Germany. It was partly due to the alarms excited,
by the fact that Albert of Brandenburg, Master of the
Teutonic Knights, had secularised his land of East Prussia
and had become a Lutheran, and by the narrow escape of
the province of Koln from following in the same path,
under its reforming archbishop, Hermann von Wied.
The Peace of Augsburg made no provision for any Pro-
testants other than those who accepted the Augsburg Con-
fession ; and thousands in the Palatinate and all throughout
South Germany preferred another type of Protestant faith.
It is probable that, had Luther lived for ten or fifteen years
longer, the great division between the Eeformed or Calvin-
ist and the Evangelical or Lutheran Churches would have
been bridged over; but after his death his successors,
intent to maintain, as they expressed it, the deposit of
truth which Luther had left, actually ostracised Melanchthon
for his endeavour to heal the breach. The consequence
was that the Lutheran Church within Germany after 1555
lost large districts to the Eeformed Church.
j Under Elector Frederick iii., surnamed the Pious, the
territorial Church of the Palatinate separated from the
circle of Lutheran Churches, and in 1563 the Heidelberg
Catechism was published. This celebrated doctrinal formula
at once became, and has remained, the distinctive creed of
the various branches of the Eeformed Church within
Germany ; and its influence extended even farther.
Bremen followed the example of the Palatinate in
1568. Its divines published a doctrinal Declaration in
1572, and a more lengthy Consensus Bremenensis in 1595.
Anhalt, under its ruler John George (1587-1603), did
away with the consistorial system of Church government,
and abandoned the use of Luther's Catechism. Hesse-
Cassel joined the circle of German Eeformed Churches in
1605. These examples were followed in many smaller
principalities, most of which, imitating all the Eeformed
Churches, published separate and distinctive confessiouB of
4 INTRODUCTION
faith, which were nevertheless supposed to contain the sum
and substance of the common Eeformed creed. ^
These German principalities, rulers and inhabitants,
placed themselves deliberately outside the protection of the
Religious Peace of Augsburg. The fundamental principles
of their faith were not very different from the Lutheran,
but they were important enough to make them forego
the protection which the treaty afforded. Setting aside
minor differences and sentiments, perhaps more powerful
than doctrines, their separation from neighbouring Pro-
testants was based on their objection to the doctrine of
Ubiquity, essential to the Lutheran theory of the Sacrament
of the Supper, and to the consistorial system of ecclesi-
^ The fullest account of these German Reformed confessions is to be found
in Miiller's Die Bekenninisschriften der reforTtiirten Kirche — the Emden
Catechism (1554), pp. 1 and 666 ; the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), pp. 1,
682 ; the Nassau Confession of the Dillenburg Synod (1578), liii, 720 ; the
Bremen Consensus (1595), liv, 739 ; the Utaffort Book (1559) for Baden, liv,
797 ; the Confession of the General Synod of Cassel, Iv and 817, and the
Hessian Catechism (1607), 822 ; and the Bentheim Confession (1613), 833.
All these German Reformed confessions followed Melanchthon in his
endeavours to unite the Calvinist and the Lutheran doctrinal positions.
By far the most celebrated, and the only one which maintains its place
as a doctrinal symbol down to the present day, is the Heidelberg Catechism.
1 1 was drafted at the suggestion of the Elector Frederick the Pious by two
theologians, Caspar Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus, who were able to
express in a really remarkable degree the thoughts of German Protestants
who could not accept the hard and fast Lutheranism of the opponents of
Melanchthon. It speedily found favour in many parts of Germany, although
its strongest supporters belonged to the Rhine provinces. It was in use
both as a means of instruction and as a doctrinal symbol in most of the
German Reformed Churches along with their own symbolical books. Its
use spread to Holland and beyond it. Two separate translations appeared
in Scotland. The earlier is contained in (Dunlop's) Collection of Confessions
of Faith. . . . of public authority in the Church of Scotland, under the title,
A Catechism of the Christian Religion, composed by Zachary Ursin, approved
by Frederick III. Elector Palatine, the Reformed Church in the Palatinate,
and by other Reformed Churches in Germany ; and taught in their schools
and churches : examined and approved, without any alteration, by the Synod
of Dort, and appointed to be taught in the reforrned churches and schools in
the Netherlands : translated and printed Anno 1591 by 2>ublic authority for
the use of Scotland, with the arguments and use of the several doctrines therein
contained, by Jeremias Bastingius ; sometimes printed loith the Book of
Common Order and Psalm Book.
THE REFORMATION OUTSIDE GERMANY 5
astical government. They repudiated the two portions of
the Lutheran system which were derived professedly from
the mediaeval Church, and insisted on basing their exposi-
tion of doctrine and their scheme of ecclesiastical govern-
ment more directly on the Word of God. They had come
in contact with another reformation movement, had
recognised its sturdier principles, and had become so
enamoured of them that they felt compelled to leave the
Lutheran Church for the Eeformed.
Still confining ourselves to Germany, it is to be noticed
that the Augsburg Confession ostentatiously and over and
over again separated those who accepted it from protesters
against the mediaeval Church, who were called Anabaptists.
It repudiated views supposed to be held by them on
Baptism, the Holy Scripture, the possibility of a life of
sinless perfection, and the relation of Christian men to the
magistracy. In some of the truces arranged between the
Emperor and the evangelical princes, — truces which antici-
pated the religious Peace of Augsburg, — attempts were
made to induce Lutherans and Eomanists to unite in sup-
pressing those sectaries. It is needless to say that they
were not included in the settlement in 1555. Yet they
had spread all over Germany, endured with constancy
bloody persecutions, and from them have come the large
and influential Baptist Churches in Europe an^ America.
From beginning to end they were outside the Lutheran
Eeformation. ' .
I 2. The Reformation outside Germany.
When we go beyond Germany and survey the otluM-
countries of Western Europe, it is abundantly evident that
the story of the Lutheran movement from its beginning
down to its successful • issue in the Eeligious Peace of
Augsburg is only a small part of the history of the Ee-
terination. France, Great Britain, the Netherlands,
Bohemia, Hungary, even Italy, Spain, and Poland, throbbed
with the religious revival of the sixteenth century, and its
6 INTRODUCTION
manifestations in these lands differed in many respects
from that which belonged to Germany. All shared
with Germany the common experiences, intellectual and
religious, political and economic, of that period of transition
which is called the Eenaissance in the wider sense of the
word — the transition from mediaeval to modern life> They
had all come to the parting of the ways. They had all
emerged from Mediasvalism, and all saw the wider outlook
which was the heritage of the time. All felt the
same longing to shake themselves clear of the incubus of
clericalism which weighed heavily on their national life,
whether religious or political. Each land went forward,
marching by its own path marked out for it by its past
history, intellectual, religious, and civil. The movements
in these various countries towards a freer and more real
religious Hfe cannot be described in the same general terms ;
but if Italy and Spain be excepted, their attempts at a
national reformation had one thing in common which
definitely separated them from the Lutheran movement.
§ 3. The Reformed type of Doctrine.
If the type of doctrine professed by the Protestants
in those countries be considered (confessedly a partial, one-
sided, and imperfect standard), it may be said that they all
refused to accept some of the distinctive Lutheran dogmatic
conclusions, and that they all departed more widely from
some of the conceptions of the Mediaeval Church. Their
national confessions in their final forms borrowed more
from Zurich and Geneva than from Wittenberg, and they
all bslong to the Reformed as distinguished from theLutheran
or Evangelical circle of creeds.^ It was perhaps natural
^ Compare vol. i. pt. i. A2ff.
2 The most complete collection of those Refonned creeds is given in
Miiller, Die Bekenntnisschriftcn der reformirten Kirche (Leipzig, 1903).
The most important are the following (the figures within brackets give the
pages in Miiller) ; —
SwiTZEULAND. — Zwiiigli's Theses of 1523 (xvi, 1) ; First Helvetic Confes-
sion of 1536 (xxvi, 101); Geneva Confession of 1536 (xxvi, 111); Geneva
REFORMED IDEAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT 7
that differences in the ritual and theory of the Holy
Supper, the very apex and crown of Christian Public
Worship, should be to the general eye the visible cleavage
between rival forms of Christianity. In the earlier stages
of the Eeformation movement, the great popular distinction
between the Eomanists and Protestants was that the one
refused and the other admitted the laity to partake of the
Cup of Communion ; and later, within an orthodox Pro-
testantism, the thought of uliquity was the dividing line.
The Lutherans asserted and the Reformed denied or ignored
the doctrine ; and those confessions took the Eeformed
view.
§ 4. The Reformed ideal of Ecclesiastical Government.
This similarity of published creed was the one positive
bond which united all those Chiu^ches ; but it may also be
said that all of them, with the doubtful exception of the
Church of England,^ would have nothing to do with the
consistorial system of the Lutheran Churches, and that
most of them accepted in theory at least Calvin's concep-
tion of ecclesiastical government. They strove to get
away from the mediieval ideas of ecclesiastical rule, and to
return to the principles which they believed to be laid
down for them in the New Testament, illustrated by the
conduct of the Church of the early centuries. The Church,
Catechism of 1545 [(xxviii, 117) translated in (Dunlop's) Confessions, etc., ii,
139].
England. — Edwardine Forty-two Articles of 1553, Thirty-eight Articles
of 1563, Thirty-nine Articles of 1571 (xlii, 505) ; Lambeth Articles of 1595
(xliv, 525) ; Irish Articles of 1615 (xliv, 526). .
Scotland. — Scottish Confession of 1560, National Covenant of 1581
[(xxxv, 249), (Dunlop's) Confessions, etc., ii. pp. 21 and 103].
France. — Confessio Gallicana oi \ho^ {^xx\\, 221).
Netherlands. — Confessio Belgica of 1561 (xxxiv, 233) ; Netherlands
Confession of 1566 (xxxv, 935) ; Frisian Confession of 1528 (xxi, 930).
Hungary. — H2ingarian Confession of 1562 (xxviii, 376).
Bohemia. — Bohemian Confession of 1609 (xxxix, 453).
^ It has been suggested that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction which grew
out of the Elizabethan settlement of religion in England borrowed not a few
characteristics from the Lutheran consistorial courts.
i
8 INTRODUCTION
according to Calvin, was a theocratic democracj, and the
ultimate source of authority lay in the membership of the
Christian community, inspired by the Presence of Christ
promised to all His people. But in the sixteenth century
this conception was confronted and largely qualified in
practice, by the dread that it might lead to a return to the
clerical tutelage of the mediaeval Church from which they
had just escaped. Presbyter might become priest writ
large ; and the leaders of the Eeformation in many lands
could see, as Zwingli did in Zurich and Cranmer in
England, that the civil authorities might well represent
the Christian democracy. Even Calvin in Geneva had to
content himself with ecclesiastical ordinances which left
the Church completely under the control of les trds honnores
seigneurs syndicques et conseil de Geneve ; and the Scottish
Church in 1572 had to recognise that the King was the
" Supreme Governor of this realm as well in things
temporal as in the conservation and purgation of religion."
The nations and principalities in Western Europe which
had adopted and supported the Eeformation beHeved that
manifold abuses had arisen in the past, directly and
indirectly, through the exemption of the Church and its
possessions from secular control, and they were determined
not to permit the possibility of a return to such a state of
things. The scholarship of the Eenaissance had discovered
the true text of the old Eoman Civil Code, and one of
the features of that time of transition — perhaps its most
important and far-reaching feature, for law enters into
every relation of human life — was the substitution of civil
law based on the Codes of Justinian and Theodosius, for
canon law based on the Decretum of Gratian. These
old Eoman codes taught the lawyers and statesmen of the
sixteenth century to look upon the Church as a depart-
ment of the State ; and the thought that the Christian
community had an independent life of its own, and that
its guidance and discipline ought to be in the hands of
office-bearers chosen by its membership, was everywhere
confronted, modified, largely overthrown by the imperious
<^
THE INFLUENCE OF HUMANISM 9
claim of the civilian lawyers. Ecclesiastical leaders within
the Reformed Churches might strive as they liked to draw
the line between the possessions of the Church, which they
willingly placed under the control of civil law, and its
discipline in matters of faith and morals, which they
declared to be the inalienable possession of the Church ;
but, as a rule, the State refused to perceive the distinction,
and insisted in maintaining full control over the ecclesi-
astical jurisdiction. Hence it came about that in every
land where the secular authorities were favourable to the
Reformation, the Church became more or less subject to
y the^State ; and this resulted in a large variety of ecclesiasti-
cal organisations in communities all belonging to the Re-
formed Church. While it may be said with perfect truth
that the churchly ideal in the minds of the leaders in most
of the Reformed Churches was to restore the theocratic
democracy of the early centuries, and that this was a
strong point of contrast between them and Luther, who
insisted that the jus ejoiscopale belonged to the civil
magistrate, in practice the secular authorities in Switzerland,
the Netherlands," the Palatinate, etc., kept almost as tight a
hold on the Reformed national Churches as did the Lutheran
princes and municipalities. In one land only, France, the
ecclesiastical ideal of Calvin had full, liberty to embody
itself in a constitution, and that only because the French
Reformed Church struggled into existence under the civil
rule of a Romanist State, and, like the Christian Church
of the early centuries, maintained itself in spite of the
opposition of the secular authorities which persecuted it.
§ 5. The TnflueTice of Humanism on the Be formed Churches.
I The portion of the Reformation which lay outside the
Peace of Augsburg had another characteristic whicli dis-
jtinguished it from the Lutheran Reformation included
within the treaty — it owed much more to Humanism.
Erasmus and what he represented had a greater share in
its birth and early progress, and his influence appeared
10 INTRODUCTION
I amidst the most dissimilar surroundings. Henry vili. and
' Zwingli seem to stand at opposite poles ; yet the English
autocrat and the Swiss democrat were alike in this, that
they owed much to Erasmus, and that the reformations
which they respectively led were largely prompted by the
impulse of Humanism. One has only to compare the
Bishops Book and the Kings Booh of the Henrican period
in England with the many statements Erasmus has made
about the kind of reformation he desired to see, to recognise
that they were meant to serve for a reformation in life
and morals which would leave untouched the fundamental
doctrinal system of the mediaeval Church and its organisa-
tion in accordance with the principles laid down by the
great Humanist. The Bible, the Apostles', Nicene, and
Athanasian Creeds, with the doctrinal decisions of the first
four (Ecumenical Councils, were recognised as the standards
of orthodoxy in the Ten Articles \ and the Scholastic Theo-
logy, so derided by Erasmus, was contemptuously ignored.
The accompanying Injunctions set little store by pilgrimages,
relics, and indulgences, and the other superstitions of the
popular religious life which the great Humanist had treated
sarcastically. The two books alluded to above are full
of instructions for leading a wholesome life. The whole
programme of reformation is laid down on lines borrowed
from Erasmus.
Zwingli was under the influence of Humanism from
his boyhood. His young intellect was fed on the master-
pieces of classical antiquity — Cicero, Homer, and Pindar.
His favourite teacher was Thomas Wyttenbach, who was
half a Eeformer and half a pure follower of Erasmus. No
man influenced him more than the learned Dutchman. It
was his guidance and not the example of Luther which
made him study the Scriptures and the theologians of the
early Church, such as Origen, Jerome, and Chrysostom.
The influence and example of Erasmus can be seen even
in his attempts to create a rational theory of the Holy
Supper. His reformation, in its beginning more especially,
was much more an intellectual than a religious movement.
THE INFLUENCE OF HUMANISM 11
It aimed at a clearer understanding of the Holy Scriptures,
at the purgation of the popular religious life from idolatry
and superstition, and at a clearly reasoned out scheme of
intellectual behef. The deeper rehgious impulse wliich
drove Luther, step by step, in his path of revolt from the
mediaeval Church was lacking in Zwingli. He owed little
to Wittenberg, much to Kotterdam. It was this con-
nection with Erasmus that created the sympathy between
Zwingli and such early Dutch Keformers as Christopher
Hoen, and made the Swiss Eeformer a power in the
earlier stages of the Eeformation in the Netherlands.
The beginnings of the Eeformation movement in France,
Italy, and Spain were even more closely allied to
Humanism.
-If the preparation for reformation to be found in the
work and teaching of mediaeval evangelical nonconformists
like the Ficards be set aside, the beginnings of the Ee-
formation in France must be traced to the small group
of Christian Humanists who surrounded Marguerite
d'Angouleme and Briqonnet the Bishop of Meaux.
Marguerite herself and Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples, the
real leader of ^ the group of scholars and preachers, found
solace for soul troubles in the Christian Platonism to
which so many of the Humanists north and south of the
Alps had given themselves. The aird of the little circle
of enthusiasts was a reformation of the Church and of
society on the lines laid down by Erasmus. They looked
to reform without " tumult," to a reformation of the Church
by the Church and within the Church, brought about by
a study of the Scriptures, and especially of the Epistles
of St. Paul, by individual Christians weaning themselves
from the world while they remained in society, and by
slowly leavening the people witlx the enlightenment whicli
the New Learning was sure to bring. They cared little
for theology, much for intimacy with Christ; little for
external changes in institutions, much for personal piety.
Their efforts had little visible effect, and their via media
between the stubborn defenders of Scholasticism on the
12 INTRODUCTION
one hand and more thorough Eeformers on the other, was
found to be an impossible path to persevere in ; but it
must not be forgotten that they did much to prepare
France for the Keformation movement which they really
inaugurated ; nor that William Farel, the precursor of
Calvin himself in Geneva, belonged to the "group of
Meaux."
If Humanism influenced the " group of Meaux," who
were the advance guard of the French Eeformation, it
manifested itself no less powerfully in the training of
Calvin, who in 1536 unconsciously became the leader of
the movement. He was one of the earliest and most
enthusiastic students of the band of " royal lecturers "
appointed by Francis i. to give France the benefits of the
New Learning. He had intimate personal relations with
Bude and Cop, who were allied to the " group of Meaux,"
and were leaders among the Humanists in the University.
His earliest book, a Commentary on the De dementia of
Seneca, shows how wide and minute was his knowledge of
the Greek and Latin classical authors. Like Erasmus,
he does not seem to have been much influenced by the
mystical combination of Platonism and Christianity which
entranced the Christian Humanists of Italy and filled the
minds of the " group of Meaux " ; and like him he broke
through the narrow circle of elegant trifling within which
most of the Italian scholars were confined, and used the
New Learning for modern purposes. Humanism taught
him to think imperially in the best fashion of ancient
Eome, to see that great moral ideas ought to rule in the
government of men. It filled him with a generous
indignation at the evils which flowed from an abuse of
absolute and arbitrary power. The young scholar (he
was only three-and-twenty) attacked the governmental
abuses of the times with a boldness which revived the best
traditions of Eoman statesmanship. He denounced venal
judges who made "justice a public merchandise." He
declared that princes who slew their people or subjected
them to wholesale persecution were not legitimate rulers,
WHAT REFORMED CHURCHES OWED TO LUTHER 13
but brigands, and that brigands were the enemies of the
whole human race. At a time when persecution was
prevalent everywhere, the Commentary of the young
Humanist pleaded for tolerance in language as lofty as
Milton employed in his Areopagitica. He was not blind
to the defects of the stoical morality displayed in the
book he commented upon. He contrasted the stoical
indifference with Christian sympathy, and stoical in-
dividualism with the thought of Christian society ; but
he seized upon and made his own the loftier moral ideas
in Stoicism, and applied them to public life. Luther was
great, none greater, in holding up the liberty of the
Christian man ; but there he halted, or advanced beyond
it with very faltering step. Humanism taught Calvin
the claims and the duties of the Christian society; he
proclaimed them aloud, and his thoughts spread through-
out that portion of the Eeformation which followed his
leadership and accepted his principles. The Holy
Scriptures, St. Augustine, and the imperial ethics of the
old Eoman Stoicism coming through Humanism, were a
trinity of influence on all the Eeformed Churches.
The Eeformation in Spain and Italy was only a brief
episode ; but in its shorthved existence in these lands,
Humanism was one of the greatest forces supporting it
and giving it strength. In both countries the young life
was quenched in the blood of martyrs. So quickly did
it pass, that it seems surprising to learn that Erasmus
confidently expected that Spain would be the land to
accomplish the Eeformation without " tumult " which he so
long looked forward to and expected ; that the Scriptures
were read throughout the Spanish peninsula, and that
women vied with men in knowledge of their contents,
during the earlier part of the sixteenth century.
§ 6. What the Eeformed Church'es owed to Zuthcr.
There was, then, a Eeformation movement which in
its earliest beginnings and in its final outcome was quite
14 INTRODUCTION
distinct from that under the leadership of Luther ; but it
would be erroneous to say that it was altogether outside
Luther's influence, and that it owed little or nothing to
the great German Keformer. It is vain to speculate on
what might have been, or to ask whether the undoubted
movements making for reformation in lands outside
Germany would have come to fruition had not Luther's
trumpet-call sounded over Europe. It is enough to
state what did actually occur. If it cannot be said that
the beginnings of the Eeformation in every land came
from Luther, it can scarcely be denied that he gave to his
contemporaries the inspiration of courage and of assured
conviction. He delivered men from the fear of priest-
craft ; he taught men, in a way that no other did,
that redemption was not a secret science practised by the
priests within an institution called the Church ; that all
believers had the privilege of direct access to the very
presence of God ; and that the very thought of a priest-
hood who alone could mediate between God and man was
both superfluous and irreconcilable with the truest instincts
of the Christian religion. His teaching had a sounding
board of dramatic environment which compelled men to
listen, to attend, to be impressed, to understand, and to
follow.
He had been and was a deeply pious man, with the
piety of the type most esteemed by his contemporaries,
and therefore easily understood and sympathised with by
the common man. His piety had driven him into the
convent, as then seemed both natural and necessary.
Inside the monastery he had lived the life of a " young
saint " — so his fellow monks believed, when, in the fashion
of the day and of their class, they boasted that they had
among them one destined to revive again the best type
of mediaeval saintship. No coarse, vulgar sins of the flesh,
common enough at the time and easily condoned, smirched
his young life. When he attained to peace in believing,
he had no doubt of his vocation ; no sudden wrench tore
him away from the approved religious life of his time ; no
WHAT REFORMED CHURCHES OWED TO LUTHER 15
intellectual doubt separated him from the beliefs of his
Church. His very imperviousness to the intellectual
liberalising tendencies of Humanism made him all the
more fit to be a trusted religious leader. He went
forward step by step with such a slow, sure foot-tread
that the common man could see and follow. When he
did come forward as a Eeformer he did not run amuck at
thincrs in general. He felt compelled to attack the one
portion or the popular religious life of the times which
all men who gave the slightest thought to religion felt to
be a gross abuse. The way he dealt with it revealed that
he was the great religious genius of his age — an age which
was imperatively if confusedly calling for reform within
the sphere of religion.
' If to be original means simply to be the first to see
and make known a single truth or a fresh aspect of a
truth, it is possible to contest . the claim of Luther to be
an original thinker. It would not be difficult to point
out anticipations of almost every separate truth which
he taught to his generation. To take two only —
Wessel had denounced indulgences in language so similar
to Luther's, that, when the Eeformer read it long after the
publication of the Theses, he could say that people might
well imagine that he had simply borrowed from the old
Dutch theologian; and Lefevre d'Etaples had taught the
doctrine of justification by faith before it had flashed on
Luther's soulwith aU the force of a' revelation. But if
originality be the gift to seize, to combine into one
- organic whole, separate isolated truths, to see their bearing
upon the practical religious hfe of all men, educated and
ignorant, to use the new light to strip the common
religious life of all paralysing excrescences, to simplify
it and to make it clear that the sum and essence of
Christianity is " unwavering trust of the heart in Him
who has given Himself to us ia Christ Jesus as our
Father, personal assurance of faith because Christ with
His work undertakes our cause," and to do all this with
the tenderest sympathy for every true dumb religious
16 INTRODUCTION
instinct which had made men wander away from the
simplicity which is in Christ Jesus, then Luther stands
alone in his day and generation, unapproachable by any
other.
Hence it was that to the common people in every land
in Europe up till about 1540, when Calvin's individuality
began to make itself felt, Luther represented the Eeforma-
tion ; and all who accepted the new teaching were known
as Lutherans, whether in England, the Low Countries,
France, or French speaking Switzerland.^
Ecclesiastical historians of the Reformed Church
from the sixteenth century downward have often been
inclined to share Luther's supremacy with Zwingli.
The Swiss Reformer was gifted with many qualities
which Luther lacked. He stood in freer relation
to the doctrines and practices of the mediaeval Church,
and his scheme of theology was perhaps wider and
truer than Luther's. He had a keener intellectual insight,
and was quicker to discern the true doctrinal tendencies
of their common religious verities. But the way in which
he regarded indulgences, and his manner of protesting
against them, showed his great inferiority to Luther as a
religious guide.
" Oh the folly of it ! " said Zwingli with his master
Erasmus, — " the crass, unmitigated stupidity of it all ! " and
they scorned it, and laughed at it, and attacked it with the
light keen shafts of raillery and derisive wit. " Oh the
pity of it ! " said Luther ; and he turned men traveUing by
the wrong road on their quest for pardon (a real quest
for them) into the right path. Zwingli never seemed
to see that under the purchase of indulgences, the tramp-
ing on pilgrimages from shrine to shrine, the kissing,
reverencing, and adoring of relics, there was a real
1 William Farel, a devoted Zwinglian, was called a "Lutheran preacher"
by the authorities of Freiburg (Herminjard, Correspondance, ii. 205 n.), and
the teaching of himself and his colleagues was denounced as the " Lutheran
heresy." This was the ;?ojOM^ar view. Educated and reforming Frenchmen
like Lfcfevre discriminated : they had no great liking for Luther, and
admired Zwingli {ibid. i. 209 n.).
WHAT REFORMED CHURCHES OWED TO LUTHER 17
inarticulate cry for pardon of sins felt if not vividly
repented of. Luther knew it, and sympathised with it.
He was a man of the people, not merely because he was a
peasant's son and had studied at a burgher University, but
because he had shared the religion of the common people.
He had felt with them that the repeated visits of the
plague, the new mysterious diseases, the dread of the
Turks, were punishments sent by God because of the sins
of the generation. He had gone through it all ; plunged
more deeply in the terror, writhed more hopelessly under
the wrath of God, wandered farther on the wrong path in
his quest for pardon, and at last had seen the "Beatific
Vision." The deepest and truest sympathy with fellow-
men and the vision of God are needed to make a Eeformer
of the first rank, and Luther had both as no other man had,
during the first quarter of the sixteenth century.
So men listened to him all over Europe wherever
there had been a stirring of the heart for reformation,
and it would be hard to say where there had been none.
Czechs, Hungarians, and Poles in the east ; Spaniards,
Englishmen, Frenchmen, Dutch, and Scots in the west;
Swedes in the north, and Italians in the south — all
welcomed, and read, and were moved by what Luther
wrote. First the Theses, then sermons and tracts, then
the trumpet call To the Ndhility of the German Nation
and the Prceludium to the Babylonian Captivity of the
Church of Christ, and, above all, his booklet On the
Liberty of a Christian Man. As men read, what had
been only a hopeful but troubled dream of the night
became a vision in the light of day. They heard pro-
claimed aloud in clear unfaltering speech what they
had scarcely dared to whisper to themselves. Fond and
devout imaginations became religious certainties. They
risked all to get possession of the sayings of this " man of
God." Cautious, dour Scotch burghers ventured ship and
cargo for the sake of the little quarto tracts hid in the
bales of cloth which came to the ports of Dundee and
Leith. Oxford and Cambridge students passed tliem
1 8 . INTRODUCTION
from hand to hand in spite of Wolsey's proclamations and
Warham's precautions. Luther's writings were eagerly
studied in Paris by town and University as early as May
1519.^ Spanish merchants bought Luther's books at the
Frankfurt Fair, spent some of their hard won profits in
getting them translated and printed in Spanish, and
carried them over the Pyrenees on their pack mules.
Under the influence of these writings the Eeformation took
shape, was something more than the devout imagination
of a few pious thinkers, and became an endeavour to give
expression to common religious certainties in change of
creed, institutions, and worship. Thus Luther helped the
Eeformation in every land. The actual beginnings in
England, France, the Netherlands, and elsewhere had come
' into existence years before Luther had become known ; it
is possible that the movements might have come to fruition
apart from his efforts ; but the influence of his writings was
like that of the sun when it quickens and makes the seed
sprout that has been " happed " in a tilled and sown field.
§ 7. National ^Characteristics.
j It was not that the Eeformation in any of these
(countries was to become Lutheran in the end, or had a
Lutheran stage of development. The number of genuine
Lutherans outside Germany and Scandinavia was very
small. Here and there a stray one was to be found, like
Dr. Barnes in England or Louis Berquin in France. One
of the deepest principles of the great Eeformer's teaching
itself checked the idea of a purely Lutheran Eeformation
^ Peter Tschudi, writing to Beatus Rlienanus from Paris (May 17th, 1519)
says: "Reliqui, quod equidem literis digimni censeam, nil superest, quam
M. Lutheri opera ab universa eruditorum cohorte obviis ulnis excipi, etiam
iis qui minimum sapiunt plausibilia" (Herminjard, Correspondance des
Reformateurs dans les pays de langue fran(;aisc, 2nd ed. i. 46). In Nov.
1.520, Glareanus wrote to Zwingli that Paris was excited over the Leipzig
Disputation ; and Bulseus shows that twenty copies «f a pamphlet, entitled
Disputatio inter egregios vivos et doctor es Joa. Eckium et M. Lutherum,
arrived in Paris on Jan. 20th, 1520 {ibid. 62, 63?*,).
NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS 19
which would embrace the whole Eeformation Church.
He taught that the practical exercise of faith ought to
manifest itself within the great institutions of human
life which have their origin in God — in marriage, the
family, the calling, and the State, in the ordinary life we
lead with its environment. Nations have their character
and characteristics as well as individual men, and they
mould in natural ways the expression in creed and
institution of the religious certainties shared by alL The
Eeformation in England was based on the same spiritual
facts and forces which were at work in France, Germany,
and the Netherlands, but each land had its own ways of
embodying them. It is interesting to note how national
habits, memories, and even prejudices compelled the external
embodiment to take very varying shapes, and force the
historian to describe the Eeformation in each country as
something by itself.
The new spiritual life in England took a shape
distinctly marked out for it by the almost forgotten
reformatory movement under Wiclif which had been
native to the soil. Scotland might have been expected
to follow the lead of England, and bring her ecclesiastical
reconstruction into harmony with that of her new and
powerful ally. The English alliance was the great
political fact of the Scottish Eeformation, and leading
statesmen in both countries desired the still nearer
approach which conformity in the . organisation of the
Churches could not fail to foster. But the memory of the
old French alliance was too strong for Cecil and Lethington,
and Scotland took her methods of Church government from
France (not from Geneva), and drifted farther and farther
away from the model of the EngHsh settlement. The
fifteenth century War of the I!ublic Weal repeated itself in
the Wars of Eeligion in France ; and in the Edict of Nantes
the Eeformed Church was offered and accepted guarantees
for her independence such as a feudal prince might have
demanded. The old political local independence wliich had
characterised the Low Countries in the later Middle Ages
20 INTRODUCTION
reasserted itself in the ecclesiastical arrangements of the
Netherlands. The civic republics of Switzerland demanded
and received an ecclesiastical form of government which
suited the needs of their social and political life.
Yet amidst all this diversity there was the prevailing
sense of an underlying unity, and the knowledge that each
national Church was part of the Catholic Church Eeformed
was keener than among the Lutheran Churches. Protest-
ant England in the time of Edward VI. welcomed and sup-
ported refugees banished by the Augsburg Interim from
Strassburg. Frankfurt received and provided for families
who fled from the Marian persecutions in England.
Geneva became a city of refuge for oppressed Protestants
from every land, and these strangers frequently added quite
a third to her population The feeling of fraternity was
maintained, as in the days of the early Church, by constant
interchange of letters and messengers, and correspondence
gave a sense of unity which it was impossible to embody
in external political organisation. The sense of a common
danger was also a wonderful bond of kinship ; and the
feeling that Philip of Spain was always plotting their
destruction, softened inter-ecclesiastical jealousies. The
same sort of events occurred in all the Churches at almost
the same times. The Colloquy of Westminster (1559) was
separated from the Colloquy of Poissy (1561) by an
interval of two years only, and the same questions were
discussed at both. Queen Elizabeth openly declared her-
self a Protestant by partaking of the communion in both
" kinds " at Easter, 1559; and on the same day Antoine dc
Bourbon, King of Navarre, made the same profession in the
same way at Pau in the south of France. Mary of Guise
resolved that the same festival should see the Scots united
under the old faith, and thus started the overt rebeUion
which ended in Scotland becoming a Protestant nation.
The course of the Reformation in each country must be
described separately, and yet it is the one story with
differences due to the accidents of national temperaments,
memories, and political institutions.
CHAPTER II.
THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND UNDER
ZWINGLI.
§ 1. The 2:)olit leal Condition of Switzerland}
Switzerland in the sixteenth century was like no other
country in Europe. It was as divided as Germany or Italy,
and yet it had a unity which they could not boast. It was
a confederation or little republic of communes and towns of
the primitive Teutonic type, in which the executive power
was vested in the community. The various cantons were
all independent, but they were banded together in a com-
mon league, and they had a federal flag — a white cross on
a red ground, which bore the motto, " Each for all, and all
for each."
The separate members of the Federation had come into
existence in a great variety of ways, and all retained the
distinctive marks of their earlier history. The beginnings
go back to the thirteenth century, when the three Forest
cantons, Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, having freed them-
selves from the dominion of their feudal lords, formed
themselves into a Perpetual League (1291), in which they
pledged themselves to help each other to maintain the
liberty they had won. After the battle of Morgarten they
renewed the League at Brunnen (1315), pronaising again to
aid each other against all usurping lords. Hapsburg, the
cradle of the Imperial House of Austria, lies on the south -
^ A. Rilliet, Les Origines de la Con/Miration Suisse: Histoire et Ligende
(Geneva, 1869) ; J. Dierauer, Geschichte der schweizerisch^n Eidgeriossen-
schaft (Gotha, 1890).
21
22 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
east bank of the river Aare, and the dread of this great
feudal family strengthened the bonds of the League ; while
the victories of the independent peasants over the House of
Austria, and later over the Duke of Burgundy, increased its
reputation. The three cantons grew to be thirteen —
Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, Luzern, Zurich, Bern, Glarus,
Zug, Freiburg, Basel, Schaffhausen, Solothurn, and
Appenzell. Other districts, without becoming members of
the League, sought its protection, such as the Valais and the
town and country under the Abbey of St. Gallen. Other
leagues were formed on its model among the peasantry of
the Ehgetian Alps — in 1396 the League of the House of
God {Lia da Ga Be) — at the head of which was the
Church at Chur ; in 1424 the Graiibilnden {Lia Grischa
or Gray League) \ in 1436 the Ljeague of the Ten Jurisdic-
tions {Lia della desch Dretturas). These three united in
1471 to make the Three Perpetual Leagues of Rhoctia.
They were in close alliance with the Swiss cantons from
the fifteenth century, but did not become actual members of
the Swiss Confederacy until 1803. The Confederacy also
made some conquests, and the districts conquered were
generally governed on forms of mutual agreement between
several cantons — a complicated system which led to many
bickerings, and intensified the quarrels which religion gave
rise to in the sixteenth century.
Each of these thirteen cantons preserved its own itide-
pendence and its own mode of government. Their political
organisation was very varied, and dependent to a large
extent on their past history. The Forest cantons were
communes of peasant proprietors, dwelling in inaccessible
valleys, and their Diet was an assembly of all the male
heads of families. Zurich was a manufacturing and com-
mercial town which had grown up under the protection of
an old ecclesiastical settlement whose foundation went back
to an age beyond that of Charles the Great. Bern was
originally a hamlet, nestling under the fortified keep of an
old feudal family. In Zurich the nobles made one of the
" guilds " of the town, and the constitution was thoroughly
THE POLITICAL CONDITION OF SWITZERLAND 23
democratic. Bern, on the other hand, was an aristocratic
republic. But in all, the power in the last resort belonged
to the people, who were all freemen with full rights of
citizenship.
The Swiss had little experience of episcopal government.
Their relations with the Papacy had been entirely political
or commercial, the main article of commerce being soldiers
to form the Pope's bodyguard, and infantry for his Italian
wars, and the business had been transacted through Legates.
Most of the territory of Switzerland was ecclesiastically
divided between the archiepiscopal provinces of Mainz and
BesanQon, and the river Aare was the boundary between
them. The division went back to the beginning of Christi-
anity in the land. The part of Switzerland which lay to-
wards France had been Christianised by Eoman or Gallic
missionaries ; while the rest, which sloped towards Germany,
had been won to Christianity by Irish preachers ! Basel
and Lausanne figure as bishoprics under Besan^on ; while
Constance, a bishopric under Mainz, asserted episcopal rights
over Zurich and the neighbourhood. The rugged, mountain-
ous part of the country was vaguely claimed for the pro-
vince of Mainz without being definitely assigned to any
diocese. This contributed to make the Swiss people singu-
larly independent in all ecclesiastical • matters, and taught
them to manage their Church affairs for themselves.
Even in Zurich, which acknowledged the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Constance, the Council
insisted on its right of supervising Church properties, and
convents w^ere under State inspection.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, intercourse
with their neighbours was changing the old simple manners
of the Swiss. Their repeated victories over Charles the
Bold of Burgundy had led to the belief that the Swiss
infantry was the best in Europe, and nations at war with
each other were eager to hire Swiss' troops. The custom
had gradually grown up among the Swiss cantons of
hiring out soldiers to those who paid best for them. These
mercenaries, demoralised by making merchandise of their
24 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
lives in quarrels not their own, and by spending their pay
in riotous living when they returned to their native
valleys, were corrupting the population of the Confederacy.
The system was demoralising in another way. The two
great Powers that trafficked in Swiss infantry were
France and the Papacy ; and the French king on the one
hand, and the Pope on the other, not merely kept per-
manent agents in the various Swiss cantons, but gave
pensions to leading citizens to induce them to persuade
the canton to which they belonged to hire soldiers to the
one side or the other. Zwingli, in his earlier days,
believed that the Papacy was the only Power with which
the Swiss ought to ally themselves, and received a papal
pension for many years.
§ 2. ZwingWs Youth and Education}
Huldreich (Ulrich) Zwingli, the Eeformer of Switzer-
land, was born on January 1st, 1484 (fifty-two days after
Luther), in the hamlet of Wildhaus (or Wildenhaus),
lying in the upper part of the Toggenburg valley, raised
so high above sea-level (3600 feet) that fruits refuse to
ripen. It lies so exactly on the central watershed of
1 Sources : 0. Myconius, "Vita Huldrici Zwinglii" (in Neander's Vitce
Quatuor Reformatorum, Berlin, 1841) ; H. Bullinger, Reformationsgeschichte
(Frauenfeld, 1838-40) ; Johann Salat, Ghronik der schweizerisch en Reforma-
tion von deren Anfdngen his 1534 (vol. i. of Archiv fur sehweizerische
Reformationsgeschichte, Solotlmrn, 1868) ; Kessler, Sdbhata (ed. by Egli,
St. Gall, 1902);. Strickler, Actensammlung zur schweizerischen Reformations-
geschichte in den Jahren 1521-32 (Zurich, 1877-84) ; Egli, Actensammlung
znr Geschichte der Zuricher Reformation, 1519-33 (Zurich, 1879) ; W. Gisi,
Aclenstiicke zur Schweizergeschichte der Jahre 1521-22 (vol. xv. of Archiv
fur die schweizer. Geschichte), pp. 285-318 ; Herminjard, Correspondance des
Rtformateurs dans les pays de langue fran(;aise (Geneva, 166-93) ; Stahelin
Briefe aus der Ilrformationszeit (Basel, 1887).
Later Books : Stahelin, Huldreich Zwingli : sein Lehen und Wirken
nach den Quellen dargestellt, 2 vols. (Basel, 1895-97) ; Morikofer, Ulrich
Zwingli nach den u.rkitndlichen Quellen, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1867-69) ; S. M.
Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, 14S4-1531 (New York, 1901) ; Cambridge
Modern History, ii. x. (Cambridge, 1903) ; Ruchat, Histoire de la Reforma-
tion de la Suisse, ed. by Vulliemin, 7 vols. (Paris, 1835-38).
ZWINGLl's YOUTH AND EDUCATION 25
Europe, that the rain which falls on the one side of the ridge
of the red-tiled church roof goes into a streamlet wliich
feeds the Danube, and that which falls on the other finds
its way to the Rhine. He came third in a large family of
eio"ht sons and two daughters. His father, also called
Huldreich, was the headman of the commune, and his
uncle, Bartholomew Zwingli, was the parish priest. His
education was superintended by Bartholomew, who became
Dean of Wesen in 1487, and took the small Huldreich
with him to his new sphere of work. Tlie boy was sent
to the school in Wesen, where he made rapid progress.
Bartholomew Zwingli was somewhat of a scholar himself.
When he discovered that his nephew was a precocious boy,
he determined to give him as good an education as was
possible, and sent hira to Basel (Klein-Basel, on the east
bank of the Ehine) to a famous school taught, by the gentle
scholar, Gregory Buenzli (1494-98).
In four years the lad had outgrown the teacher's powers
of instruction, and young Zwingli was sent to Bern to a
school taught by the Humanist Heinrich Wolflin (Lupulus),
who was half a follower of Erasmus and half a Reformer.
He was passionately fond of music, and lodged in one
of the Dominican convents in the town which was famed
for the care bestowed on musical education. ZwiugU was
so carried away by his zeal for the study, that he, had some
thoughts of becoming a monk . merely to gratify his
musical tastes. His family, who had no desire to see him
enter a monastery, removed him from Bern and sent him
to the University of Vienna, where he spent two years
(1500-1502). There he had for friends and fellow-
^ students, Joachim von Watt ^ (Vadianus), Heinrich Loriti ^
"' 1 Joachim de Watt, a native of St. Gallen (b. 1484, December 30) was
a distinguished scholar. He became successively physician, member of
council, and burgomaster in his native town, and did much to establish
the Reformation ; he was a well-known author, and wrote several theological
works.
2 Heinrich Loriti was the most distinguished of all the Swiss Humanists.
He studied successively at Bern, Vienna, and Kbln, an.l attained the barren
lionour of being made Court-poet to the Emperor Maximilian. At Base),
26 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
of Glarus (Glareanus), Johann Heigerlin^ of Leutkirch
(Faber), and Johann Meyer of Eck, the most notable of
all Luther's opponents. In 1502 he returned to Switzer-
land and matriculated in the University of Basel. He
became B.A. in 1504 and M.A. in 1506, and in the same
year became parish priest of Glarus.
The childhood and youth of Zwingli form a striking
contrast to Luther's early years. He enjoyed the rude
plenty of a well-to-do Swiss farmhouse, and led a joyous
young life. He has told us how the family gathered in
the stuhe in the long winter evenings, and how his grand-
mother kept the children entranced with her tales from
the Bible and her wonderful stories of the saints. The
family were all musical, and they sang patriotic folk-songs;
recording in rude verse the glories of Morgarten, Sempach,
and the victories over the tyrant of Burgundy. " When I
was a child," says Zwingli, " if anyone said a word
against our Fatherland, it put my back up at once." He
was trained to be a patriot. " From boyhood I have
shown so great, eager, and sincere a love for our honour-
able Confederacy that I trained myself diligently in every
act and discipline to this end." His uncle Bartholomew was
an admirer of the New Learning, and the boy was nurtured
in everything that went to make a Humanist, with all its
virtues and failings. He was educated, one might almost
say, in the art of enjoying the present without discriminat-
ing much between what was good and evil in surrounding
society. He was trained to take life as it came. No
where he first settled, he kept a boarding school for boys who wished to
study the classics, and in 1517 he transferred himself and about twenty
young Switzers, his pupils, to Paris. He modelled his school, he wtis'f
pleased to think, on the lines of the Roman Republic, was Consul luiiiselr,^^;
had a Senate, a pra^itor, and meetings of Comitia. He remained a fast
friend of Zwingli.
^ Johann Heigerlin (Faber) remained a steadfast Romanist. He became
vicar-general to the Bishop of Constance, and as such was an antagonist of
Zwingli. He ended his days as Bishop of Vienna. He wiote much
against Luther, and was known as the " hammer of the Lutherans." Alon^
with Eck and Cochlfeus, he was the distinguished champion of the Romanidt
cause in Germany.
AT GLARUS AND EINSIEDELN 27
great sense of sin troubled his youthful years. He never
shuddered at the wrathful face of Jesus, the Judge,
gazing at him from blazoned church window. If lie was
once tempted for a moment to become a monk, it was in
order to enjoy musical society, not to quench the sin that
was burning him within, and to win the pardon of an
angry God. He took his ecclesiastical calling in a careless,
professional way. He belonged to a family connected
on both sides with the clergy, and he followed the family
arrangement. Until far on in life the question of per-
sonal piety did not seem to trouble him much, and he
never belonged, like Luther and Calvin, to the type of
men who are the leaders in a revival of personal religion.
He became a Eeformer because he was a Humanist, with
a liking for Augustinian theology ; and his was such a
frank, honest -nature that he could not see cheats and
shams done in the name of religion without denouncincj them.
To the end of his days he was led more by his intellect
than by the promptings of the heart, and in his earlier years
he was able to combine a deep sense of responsibility about
most things with a careless laxity of moral life.
^ 3. At Glarus and Einsiedeln.
At Glarus he was able to follow his Humanist studies,
guided by the influences which had surrounded him during
his last year at Basel. Among these his fnendship with
Thomas Wyttenbach was the most lasting. Wyttenbach
taught him, he tells us, to see the evils and abuses of
indulgences, the supreme authority of the Bible, that
the death of Christ was the sole price of the remission of
sins, and that faith is the key which unlocks to the soul
the treasury of remission. All these thoughts he had
grasped intellectually, and made much of them in his
sermons. He prized preaching highly, and resolved to
cultivate the gift by training himself on the models of
antiquity. He studied the Scriptures, joyfully welcomed
the new Greek Testament of Erasmus, published by Froijon
28 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
of Basel in 1516, when he was at Einsiedeln, and copied
out from it the whole of the Pauline Epistles. On the
wide margins of his MS. he wrote annotations from
Erasmus, Origen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Jerome. It
was his constant companion.
At Glariis he was personally introduced to the system
of mercenary war and of pensions in which Switzerland
had engaged. He went to Italy twice as regimental
chaplain with the Glarus contingent, and was present
at the fight at Novara (1513), and on the fatal day at
Marignano (1515).
His experiences in these campaigns convinced him of
the harm in this system of hiring out the Swiss to fight
in others' quarrels ; and when he became convinced of the
evils attending it, he denounced the practice. His out-
spoken language displeased many of his most influential
parishioners, especially those who were partisans of the
French, and Zwingli resolved to seek some other sphere
of work.
The post of people's priest at Einsiedeln, the famous
monastery and pilgrimage resort, was offered to him and
accepted (April 14th, 1516). He retained his official con-
nection with Glarus, and employed a curate to do his
parish work. His fame as a preacher grew. His friends
desired to see hrm in a larger sphere, and through their
exertions he was appointed to be people's priest in the
Minster at Zurich. An objection had been made to his
selection on the ground that he had disgracefully
wronged the daughter of a citizen of Einsiedeln ; and his
letter of vindication, while it exonerates him from the
jmrticular charge brought against him, shows that he was
by no means clear of the laxity in private morals whicli
characterised the Swiss clergy of the time. The stipend
attached to his office in the Great Minster was very small,
and on this ground Zwingli felt himself justified, un-
warrantably, in retaining his papal pension.^
1 For details about Zwingli's pa[>al pension, of. S. M. Jackson, IliUdrelch
Zwingli, p. 114.
ZWINGLI IN ZURICH 29
§ 4. Zwingli in Zurich,
Zurich, when Zwingli went to it, was an imperial city.
It had grown up around the Great Minster and the
Minster of Our Lady (the Little Minster), and had de-
veloped into a trading and manufacturing centre. Its
citizens, probably owing to the ecclesiastical origin of the
town, had long engaged in quarrels with the clergy, and
had generally been successful. They took advantage of the
rivalries between the heads of the two Minsters and the
Emperor's bailiff to assert their independence, and had
passed laws subordinating the ecclesiastical authorities to
the secular rule. The taxes were levied on ecclesiastical as
well as on secular property ; all the convents were under
civic control, and liable to State inspection. The popes,
anxious to keep on good terms with the Swiss who furnished
soldiers for their wars, had expressly permitted in Zurich
what they would not have allowed elsewhere.
The town was ruled by a Council or Senate composed
of the Masters of the thirteen " gilds " (twelve trades' gilds
and one gild representing the patriciate). The Burgomaster,
with large powers, presided. A great Council of 212
members was called together on special occasions.
The city of Zurich, with its thoroughly democratic
constitution, was a very fitting sphere for a ,man like
Zwingli. He had made a name for himself by this time.
He had become a powerful preacher, able to stir and move
the people by his eloquence; he was in intimate relations
with the more distinguished German Humanists, introduced
to them by his friend Heinrich Loriti of Glarus (known
as Glareanus). He had already become the centre of an
admiring circle of young men of liberal views. His place
as people's preacher gave to a man of his popular gifts a
commanding position in" the most democratic town in
Switzerland, where civic and European politics were eagerly
discussed. He went there in December 1519.
His work as a Eeformer began almost at once.
Bermirdhi Samson or Sanson, a seller of indulgences for
30 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
Switzerland, came to Zurich to push his trade. Zwingli
had abeady encountered him at Einsiedeln, and, prompted
by the Bishop of Constance and his vicar-general, John
Faber, both of whom disliked the indulgences, had preached
against him. He now persuaded the_Council of Zurich to
forbid Samson's stay in the town.
The papal treatment of the Swiss Eeformer was very
different from what had been meted out to Luther.
Samson received orders from Rome to give no trouble to
the Zurichers, and to leave the city rather than quarrel
with them. The difference, no doubt, arose from the
desu-e of the Curia to do nothing to hinder the supply of
Swiss soldiers for the papal wars ; but it was also justified
by the contrast in the treatment of the subject by the
two Eeformers. Luther struck at a great moral abuse,
and his strokes cut deeply into the whole round of
mediaeval religious life, with its doctrine of a special priest-
hood ; he made men see the profanity of any claim made
by men to pardon sin, or to interfere between their fellow-
men and God. Zwingli took the whole matter more
lightly. His position was that of Erasmus and the
Humanists. He could laugh at and ridicule the whole
proceeding, and thought most of the way in which men
allowed themselves to be gulled and duped by clever
knaves. He never touched the deep practical religious
(question which Luther raised, and which made his chal-
lenge to the Papacy reverberate over Western Europe.
From the outset Zwingli became a prominent figure
in Zurich. He announced to the astonished Chapter of the
Great Minster, to whom he owed his appointment, that he
meant to give a series of continuous expositions of the
Gospel of St. Matthew; that he would not follow the
scholastic interpretation of passages in the Gospel, but
would endeavour to make Scripture its own interpreter.
The populace crowded to hear sermons of this new kind.
In order to reach the country people, Zwingli preached in
the market-place on the Fridays, and his fame spiead
throuc^hout the villages. The Franciscans, Dominicans,
ZWINGLI IN ZURICH 31
and Augustinian Eremites tried to arouse opposition, but
unsuccessfully. In his sermons he denounced sins
sucrgested in the passages expounded, and found occasion
to deny the doctrines of Purgatory and the Intercession of
Saints.
His strongest attack on the existing ecclesias.tical system
was made in a sermon on tithes, which, to the distress of
the Provost of the Minster, he declared to be merely
voluntary offerings. (He had been reading Hus' book
On the Church.) He must have carried most of the
Chapter with him in his schemes for improvement, for in
June 1520 the Breviary used in the Minster was revised
by Zwingli and stripped of some blemishes. In the follow-
ing year (March 1521), some of the Zurichers who were
known to be among ZwingU's warmest admirers, the
printer Froschauer among them, asserted their convictions
by eating flesh meat publicly in Lent. The affair made a
great sensation, and the Keformers were brought before the
Council of the city. They justified themselves by declaring
that they had only followed the teaching of Zwingli, who
had shown them that nothing was binding on the con-
sciences of Christians which was not commanded in the
Scriptures. Zwingli at once undertook their defence, and
pubUshed his sermon, Selection or Liberty concerning Foods;
an offence and scandal ; whether there is any Authority for
forbidding Meat at certain times (April Ibth, 1522). He
declared that in such matters the responsibility rests with
the individual, who may use his freedom provided he avoids
a public scandal.
The matter was felt to be serious, and the Council, after
full debate, passed an ordinance which was meant to be a
compromise. It was to the effect that although the New
Testament makes no rule on the subject, fasting in Lent is
a very ancient custom, and must not be set aside until dealt
with by authority, and that the priests of the three parishes
of Zurich were to dissuade the people from all violation of
the ordinance.
The Bishop of Constance thereupon interfered, and sent
32 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
a Commission, consisting of his suffragan and two others, to
investigate and report. They met the Small Council, and
in a long address insisted that the Church had authority
in such matters, and that the usages it commanded must be
obeyed. Zwingli appeared before the Great Council, and, in
spite of the efforts of the Commission to keep him sileut,
argued in defence of liberty of conscience. In the end the
Council resolved to abide by its compromise, but asked the
Bishop of Constance to hold a Synod of his clergy and
come to a resolution upon the matter which would be in
accordance with the law of Christ. This resolution of the
Council really set aside the episcopal authority, and was a
revolt against the Eoman Church.
Political affairs favoured the rebellion. At the Swiss
Diet held at Luzern (May 1521), the cantons, in spite of
the vehement remonstrances of Zurich, made a treaty with
France, and allowed the French king to recruit a force of
16,000 Swiss mercenaries. Zurich, true to its protest,
refused to allow recruiting within its lands. Its citizens
chafed at the loss of money and the separation from the
other cantons, and Zwingli became very unpopular. He
had now made up his mind that the whole system of
pensions and mercenary service was wrong, and had
resigned his own papal pension. Just then the Pope
asked Zurich, which supplied him with half of his body-
guard, for a force of soldiers to be used in defence of his
States, promising that they would not be used to fight the
French, among whose troops were many Swiss mercenaries
from other cantons. The Council refused. Nevertheless,
six thousand Zurichers set out to join the papal army.
The Council recalled them, and after some adventures, in
one of which they narrowly escaped fighting with the Swiss
mercenaries in the service of France, they returned home.
This expedition, which brought neither money nor honour
to the Zurichers, turned the tide of popular feeling, and the
Council forbade all foreign service. When the long con-
nection between Zurich and the Papacy is considered, this
decree was virtually a breach between the citv and the
THE PUBLIC DISPUTATIONS 33
Pope. It made the path of the Eeformation much easier
(Jan. 1522), and Zwingh's open break with the Papacy
was only a matter of time.
It came with the publication of the Archeteles (August
1522), a book hastily written, like all Zwingli's works,
which contained a defence of all that he • had done,
and a programme, ecclesiastical and political, for the future.
The book increased the zeal of Zwingli's opponents. His
sermons were often interrupted by monks and others
instigated by them. The burgomaster was compelled to
interfere in order to maintain the peace of the town. He
issued an order on his own authority, without any appeal
to the Bishop of Constance, that the pure Word of Ood
was to be preached. At an assembly of the country
clergy of the canton, the same decision was reached ; and
town and clergy were ready to move along the path- of
reformation. Shortly before this (July 2nd), Zwingli
and ten other priests petitioned the bishop to permit his
clergy to contract legal marriages. The document had no
practical effect, save to show the gradual advance of ideas.
It disclosed the condition of things that sacerdotal celibacy
had produced in Switzerland.
§ 5. The Piiblic Disputations.
In these circumstances, the Great Council, now definitely
on ZwingU's side, resolved to hold a - Public Disputation
to settle the controversies in religion ; and Zwingli drafted
sixty-seven theses to be discussed. These articles coutain
a summary of his doctrinal teaching. They insist that the
Word of God, the only rule of faith, is to be received upon
its own authority and not on that of the Church. They
are very full of Christ, the only' Saviour, the true Son of
God, who has redeemed ■ us from eternal death and re-
conciled us to God. They attack tlie Primacy of the
Pope, the Mass, the Invocation of the Saints, the thought
that men can ac(iuire merit by their good works, Fasts,
Pilgrimages, and Purgatory. Of sacerdotal celibacy he
34 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
says, "/ know of no greater nor graver scandal than that
which forhids lawful marriage to priests, and yet permits
them on payment of money to have concubines and harlots.
Fie for shame ! " ^ The theses consist of single short
sentences.
The Disputation, the first of the four which marked
the stages of the legal Eeformation in Zurich, was held in
the Town Hall of the city on January 29th, 1523. More
than six hundred representative men gathered to hear it.
All the clergy of the canton were present ; Faber watched
the proceedings on behalf - of the Bishop of Constance ;
many distinguished divines from other parts of Switzerland
were present. Faber seems to have contented himself
with asking that the Disputation should be delayed until
a General Council should meet, and Zwingli replied that
competent scholars who were good Christians were as able
as a Council to decide what was the meaning of the Holy
Scriptures. The result of the 'Disputation was that the
burgomaster declared that Zwingli had justified his teach-
ing, and that he was no heretic. The canton of Zurich
practically adopted Zwingli's views, and the Eeformer was
encouraged to proceed further.
His course of conduct was eminently prudent. He
invariably took pains to educate the people up to further
changes by explaining them carefully in sermons, and by
publishing and circulating these discourses. He considered
that it was his duty to teach, but that it belonged to the
civic authorities to make the changes ; and he himself
made none until they were authorised. He had very
strong views against the use of images in churches, and
had preached vigorously against their presence. Some
of his more ardent hearers began to deface the statues
and pictures. The Great Council accordingly took the
whole question into consideration, and decided that a
1 Cf. Schaff, Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches (London,
1877), p. 197 ; Niemeyer, Collcctio Confessionum in ecclesiis reformatis,
jmhlicatariirn (Leipzig, 1840), p. 3 ; Miiller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der
reformierten Kirchc : Zic'nujUs Theses von 1523, Art. 49, p. 5.
THE PUBLIC DISPUTATIONS 35
second Public Disputation should be held, at which the
matter might be publicly discussed. This discussion
(October 1523) lasted for two days. More than eight
hundred persons were present, of whom three hundred and
fifty were clergy. On the first day, Zwingli set forth his
views on the presence of images in churches,, and wished
their use forbidden. The Council decided that the statues
and pictures should be removed from the churches, but
without disturbance ; the rioters were to be pardoned, but
their leader was to be banished from the city for two years.
The second day's subject of conference was the Mass.
Zwingli pled that the Mass was not a sacrifice, but a
memorial of the death of our Lord, and urged that- the
abuses surrounding the simple Christian rite should be
swept away. The presence of Anabaptists at this conference,
and their expressions in debate, warned the magistrates
that they must proceed cautiously, and they contented
themselves with appointing a commission of eight — two
from the Council and six clergymen — to inquire and
report. Meanwhile the clergy were to be informed how
to act, and the letter of instruction was to be written by
Zwingli. The authorities also deputed preachers to go to
the outlying parts of the canton and explain the whole
matter carefully to the people.
The letter which Zwingli addressed to the clergy of
Zurich canton is a brief statement of Eeformation principles.
It is sometimes called the Instruction. Zwingli entitles it,
A hrief Christian Introductioii which the Honour aUe Council
of the city of Zurich has sent to the pastors and preachers
living in its cities, lands, and wherever its a^dhority extends,
so that they may henceforth in unison announce and preach
the gospel} It describes sin, the law, God's way of
salvation, and then goes on to speak of images. Zwingli's
argument is that the presence of statues and pictures in
churches has led to idolatry, and that they ought to be
removed. The concluding section discusses the Mass.
^ Miiller, Die Bekenntnissehriften der rcformitrten Kirche (Leipzig, 1903),
pp. xviii and 7. The Instruction is a lengtliy document.
36 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
Hare the author states very briefly what he elaborated
afterwards, that the main thought in the Eucharist is not
the repetition of the sacrifice of Christ, but its faithful
remembrance, and that the Eomish doctrine and ceremony
of the Mass has been so corrupted to superstitious uses
that it ought to be thoroughly reformed.
This letter had a marked effect. The village priests
everywhere refused to say Mass according to the old ritual.
But there was a section of the people, including members
of the chapter of the Minster, who shrunk from changes
in this central part of Christian worship. In deference
to their feelings, the Council resolved that the Holy Supper
should be meanwhile dispensed according to both the
Eeformed and the mediaeval rite ; in the one celebration the
cup was given to the laity, and in the other it was with-
held. No change was made in the liturgy. Then came
a third conference, and a fourth ; and at last the Mass
was abolished. On April 13th, 1525, the first Evangelical
communion service took place in the Great Minster, and
the mediaeval worship was at an end. Other changes had
been made. The monasteries had been secularised, and
the monks who did not wish to leave their calling were
all gathered together in the Franciscan convent. An
amicable arrangement was come to about other ecclesiastical
foundations, and the money thus secured was mainly
devoted to education.
From 1522, Zwingli had been living in "clerical"
marriage with Anna Eeinhard, the widow of a wealthy
Zurich burgher. She was called his wife by his friends,
although no legal marriage ceremony had been performed.
It is perhaps difficult for us to judge the man and the
times. The so-called " clerical " marriages were universal
in Switzerland. Man and woman took each other for
husband and wife, and were faithful. There was no
public ceremony. All questions of marriage, divorce,
succession, and so forth, were then adjudicated in the
ecclesiastical and not in the civil courts ; and as the Canon
Law had insisted that no clergyman could marry, all
THE PUBLIC DISPUTATIONS 37
such " clerical " marriages were simple concubinage in the
eye of the law, and the children were illegitimate. The
offence against the vow of chastity was condoned by a fine
paid to the bishop. As early as 1523, William Roubli, a
Zurich priest, went through a public form of marriage,
and his example was followed by others ; but it may be
questioned whether these marriages were recognised to be
legal until Zurich passed its own laws about matrimonial
cases in 1525.
Luther in his pure-hearted and solemnly sympathetic
way had referred to these clerical marriages in his Address
to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (1520).
" We see," he says, " how the priesthood is fallen, and how
many a poor priest is encumbered with a woman and children,
and burdened in his conscience, and no man does anything
to help him, though he might very well be helped. ... I
will not conceal my honest counsel, nor withhold comfort
from that unhappy crowd, who now live in trouble with wife
and children, and remain in shame, with a heavy conscience,
hearing their wife called a priest's harlot and the cliildren
bastards. ... I say that these two (who are minded in
their hearts tp live together always in conjugal fidelity) are
surely married before God."
He had never succumbed to the temptations of the
flesh, and had kept his body and soul pure,; and for that
very reason he could sympathise with and help by his
sympathy those who had fallen. Zwingli, on the other
hand, had deliberately contracted this illicit alliance after
he had committed himself to the work of a Eeformer. Tlie
action remains a permanent blot on his character, and places
him on a different level from Luther and from Calvin. It
has been already noted that Zwingli had always an intel-
lectual rather than a spiritual . appreciation of the need of
reformation, — that he wa« much more of a Humanist than
either Luther or . Calvin, — but what is remarkable is that
we have distinct evidence that the need of personal piety
had impressed itself on him during these years, and that he
passed through a religious crisis, shght compared with that
38 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
of Luther, but real so far as it went. He fell ill of the
plague (Sept. -Nov. 1519), and the vision of death and
recovery drew from him some hymns of resignation and
thanksgiving.^ The death of his brother Andrew (Nov.
1520) seems to have been the real turning-point in his
inward spiritual experience, and his letters and writings
are evidence of its reality and permanence. Perhaps the
judgment which a contemporary and friend, Martin Bucer,
passed ought to content us :
" When I read your letter to Capito, that you had made
public announcement of your marriage, I was almost beside
myself in my satisfaction. For it was the one thing I desired
for you. ... I never believed you were unmarried after
the time when you indicated to the Bishop of Constance in
that tract that you desired this gift. But as I considered
the fact that you were thought to be a fornicator by some,
and by others held to have little faith in Christ, I could not
understand why you concealed it so long, and that the fact
was not declared openly, and with candour and diligence.
I could not doubt that you were led into this course by
considerations which could not be put aside by a conscien-
tious man. However that may be, I triumph in the fact
that now you have come up in all things to the apostolic
definition." 2
The Eeformation was spreading beyond Zurich. Evan-
gelical preachers had arisen in many of the other cantons,
and were gaining adherents.
§ 6. The Reformation outside Zurich.
Basel, the seat of a famous university and a centre of
German Humanism, contained many scholars who had come
under the influence of Thomas Wyttenbach, Zwingli's
teacher. Wolfgang Fabricius Capito, a disciple of Erasmus,
a learned student of the Scriptures, had begun as early as
^ Literal translations of these hymns are given in Professor Macauley
Jackson's Huldreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzerlaiid (New
York and London, 1903), pp. 133, 134.
" Stiihelin, Briefe aus der lleformationszeit, pp. 15-19.
THE REFORMATION OUTSIDE ZURICH 39
1512 to show how the ceremonies and many of the usages
of the Church had no authority from the Bible. He
worked in Basel from 1512 to 1520. Johannes
Oecolampadius (Hussgen or Heusgen), who had been one
of Luther's supporters in 1521, came to Basel in 1522
as Lecturer on the Holy Scriptures in the • University.
His lectures and his sermons to the townspeople caused
such a movement that the bishop forbade their delivery.
The citizens asked for a Public Disputation. Two held
in the month of December 1524 — the one conducted by a
priest of the name of Stor against clerical celibacy, and the
other led by William FareP — raised the courage of the
'^^William Farel was born in 1489 at a village near Gap in the mountain-
ous south-east corner of Dauphin^, on the border of Provence. He belonged
to a noble family, and was devout from his earliest years. He describes
a pilgrimage which he made as a child in his book Du vray usage de la
croix de Jesus-Christ (pp. 223/.). All through his adventurous life he pre-
served his rare uprightness of character, his fervent devotion, and his indig-
nation at wrong-doing of all kinds. He persuaded his parents to allow him
to go to Paris for education, and reached the capital about 1509. He probably
spent twelve years there, partly as student and partly as professor in the
college Le Moine. There he became the friend and devoted disciple of
Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples, and this friendship carried him safely through
several religious crises in his life. He followed Lefevre to Meaux, and. was
one of the celebrated " group " there. "When persecution and the timidity
or scruples of the bishop caused the dispersion of these preachers, Farel went
back to Dauphine and attempted to preach the Gospel in Gap. He was not
allowed parce quHl n'estoit ne moine ne prestre, and was banished from tlie
district by bishop and people. He next tried to preach in Guyenne, where
he was equally unsuccessful. Thinking that there was no place in France
open to him, he took himself to Basel. There he asked the University to
allow him to hold a public disputation on certain articles which he sent to
them. The authorities refused. He then addressed himself to the Council
of the city, who permitted the discussion. The thirteen articles or Theses
defended by Farel are given in Herminjard, Corresp&iidanc& des Eeforviateurs
dans les pays de langue franqaise (i. 194, 195). He gathered a little church
of French refugees at Basel (the ecdesiola of his correspondence), but Avas too
much the ardent and impetuous pioneer to remain quietly among tliem. By
the end of July 1524 he was preaching at Montbeliard, some miles to the
south of Belfort, and the riots which ensued caused Oecolampadius to beseech
him to temper his courage with discretion (Herminjard, Curresj>oiuiance, etc.,
i. 255). He went thence to Strassburg (April 1525), to Bern, attempted
to preach in Neuchatel, and finally (middle of November 1526) opened a
school at Aigle, an outlying dcpnidency of Bern, hoping to get opportunity
40 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
Evangelical party. In February 1525 the Council of tiie
town installed Oecolampadius as the preacher in St.
Martin's Church, and authorised him to make such changes
as the Word of God demanded. This was the beginning.
Oecolampadius became a firm friend of Zwingii's, and they
worked together.
In Bern also the Eeformation made progress. Berthold
Haller ^ and Sebastian Meyer ^ preached the Gospel with
courage for several years, and were upheld by the painter
Nicolaus Manuel, who had great influence with the citizens.
The Council decided to permit freedom in preaching, if in
accordance with the Word of God ; but they refused to
permit innovations in worship or ceremonies ; and they
forbade the introduction of heretical books into the town.
The numbers of the Evangelical party increased rapidly,
and in the beginning of 1527 they had a majority in
both the great and the small Councils. It was then
decided to have a Public Disputation.
The occasion was one of the most momentous in the
history of the Eeformation in Switzerland. Hitherto
Zurich had stood alone; if Bern joined, the two most
to carry on his evangelistic work. He was soon discovered, and attempts
were made to prevent his preaching ; but the authorities of Bern insisted
that he should be unmolested. In the beginning of 1527 he was actively .
engaged at the great Disputation in Bern. That same year he was made
pastor of Aigle and put in possession of the parsonage and the stipend ; but
such work was too tame for him. He made long preaching tours ; we find
him at Lausanne, Morat, Orbe, and other places, always protected by the
authorities of Bern. He began his work in Geneva in 1532.
1 Berthold Haller was born at Aldingen (1492) ; studied at Rothweil and
Pforzheim, where he made the acquaintance of Melanchthon. He became
a Bachelor of Theology of the University of Koln ; taught for some time at
Rothweil, and then at Bern (1513-1518). He was elected people's priest in
the great church there in 1521. His sympathetic character and his great
eloquence mai^e him a power in the city ; but his discouragements were so
many and so great that he was often on the point of leaving. Zwingli
encouraged him to remain and persevere.
- Sebastian Meyer was a priest from Elsass who had been preaching in
Bern since 1518 against the abuses of the Roman Church. The notorious
wnduct of the Dominicans in Bern (1507-9), and the action of Samson, the
Indulgence-seller, in 1518, had made the Bernese ready to listen to attacks
against Rome.
THE REFORMATION OUTSIDE ZURICH 41
powerful cantons in Switzerland would be able to hold
their own. There was need for union. The Forest cantons
had been uttering threats, and Zwingli's life was not
secure. Bern was fully alive to the importance of the
proposed discussion, and was resolved to make it as impos-
ing as possible, and that the disputants on both sides
should receive fair play and feel themselves in perfect
freedom and safety. They sent special invitations to the
four bishops whose dioceses entered their territories — the
Bishops of Constance, Basel, Valais, and Lausanne ; and
they did their best to assemble a sufficient number of
learned Eomanist theologians.^ They promised not only
safe-conducts, but the escort of a herald to and from the
canton.2 j^ gQ^j^ became evident, however, that the
Eomanist partisans had no great desire to come to the
Disputation. None of the bishops invited appears to
have even thought of being present save the Bishop of
Lausanne, and he found reasons for declining.^ The Dispu-
tation was viewed with anxiety by the Eomanist partisans,
and in a letter sent from Speyer (December 28th) the
Emperor Charles v. strongly remonstrated with the
magistrates of Bern.* The Bernese were not to be
intimidated. They issued their invitations, and made
every arrangement to give eclat to the .great Disputation.^
Berthold Haller, w^ith the help of Zwingli, had drafted
^ Herminjard, Corresjoondance dcs ReformcUeurs dans les pays de laugiie
frangaise {2nd ed.), a. 55. '
2 Ibid. ii. 94, 95. 3 jf^i^l. ii. 61, 74, 89, 94, 96.
* Ruchat, Histoire de la information de la Suisse, i. 368. -
5 The invitation began : "Nous I'Advoyer, le petit et le grand Conseil de
la cite de Berne, a tons et a chaseun, spirituelz et seeuliers, prelatz, abbes,
prevostz, doyens, chanoynes, cures, sacrestains, vicaires prescheurs de la
Parolle de Dieu, et a tons prebstres, seeuliers ou reguliers, et a tous Noz
advoyers, chastellains, prevostz, lieutenans,.et tous autres officiers et a tous
Noz cliers, feaulx et aymes subjectz, et a tous nianans et habitans de Nostre
domaine et s^gnorie aux quelz les presentes letres viendront, — Salut, grace
et benivolance !
" S9avoir faisons, combien que Nous ayons fait beaucoup d'ordonnance et
mandemens publiques, pour la dissension de nostre commune foy Chrestienne,
a ce nieuz et espoirans, que cela ])rofiteroit a la ]iaix et Concorde Chrestienne,
comme chose tres utile." etc. ; Herminjard, ii. 54.
42 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
ten Theses, which were to be defended by himself and his
colleague, Francis Kolb ; Zwingli had translated them
into Latin and Farel into French for the benefit of
strangers ; and they were sent out with the invitations.
They were — (1) The Holy Catholic Church, of which
Christ is the only Head, is born of the Word of God,
^abides therein, and does not hear the voice of a stranger.^
(2) The Church of Christ makes no law nor statute apart
from the Word of God, and consequently those human
ordinances which are called the commandments of the
Church do not bind our consciences unless they are
founded on the Word of God and agreeable thereto. (3)
Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, redemption, and price
for the sins of the whole world ; and all who think
they can win salv^ation in any other way, or have other
* satisfaction for their sins, renounce Christ. (4) It is
/^impossible to prove from Scripture that the iJody and
/ Bloo^ of Christ are corporeally present in the bread of
yJUie Holy Supper. (5) The Mass, in which Christ is
offered to God the Father for the sins of the living and
the dead, is contrary to the Holy Scripture, is a gross
affront to the Passion and Death of Christ, and is there-
fore an abomination before God. (6) Since Christ alone
died for us, and since He is the only mediator and inter-
cessor between God and believers, He only ought to be
invoked ; and all other mediators and advocates ought to
be rejected, since they have no warrant in the Holy
Scripture of the Bible. (7) There is no trace of Purgatory
after death in the Bible; and therefore all services for the
dead, such as vigils, Masses, and the like, are vain things.
(8) To make pictures and adore them is contrary to the
Old and New Testament, and they ought to be destroyed
where there is the chance that they may be adored. (9)
Marriage is not forbidden to ' any estate by the Holy
Scripture, but wantonness and fornication are forbidden to
everyone in whatever estate he may be. (10) The
^ Cf. Scots Confession of 1560, Art. xix. : ** The trew Kirk quhilk
alwaies heares and obey is the voice of her awin Spouse and Pastor."
THE REFORMATION OUTSIDE ZURICH 43
fornicator is truly excommunicated by the Holy Scripture,
and therefore wantonness and fornication are much more
scandalous among the clergy than in the other estate.
These Theses represent in succinct fashion the preachiufy
in the Eeformed Church in Switzerland, and the fourth
states in its earliest form what grew to be theZwincrlian
doctrine of the Holy Supper.^
The Council of Bern had sent invitations to be present
to the leading preachers in the Evangelical cities of Germany
and Switzerland. Bucer and Capito came from Strassburg,
Jacob Ausburger from Miihlhausen, Ambrose Blaaier
from Constance, Sebastian Wagner,^ surnamed Hofmeister
((Economus), from Schaffhausen, Oecolampadius from
Basel, and many others.^ Zwingli's arrival was eagerly
expected. The Zurichers were resolved not to trust their
leader away from the city without a strong guard, and
sent him to Bern with an escort of three hundred men-at-
arms. A great crowd of citizens and strangers filled the
arcades which line both sides of the main street-, and
every window in the many-storied houses had its sight-
seers to watch the Zurichers tramping up from gate to
cathedral with their pastor safe in the centre of the
troop.
Eomanist theologians did not muster in anything like
the same strength. The men of the four Forest cantons
stood sullenly aloof; the authorities in French-speaking
Switzerland had no liking for the Disputation, and the
strongly Eomanist canton of Freiburg did its best to
prevent the theologians of Neuchatel, Morat, and Grandson
from appearing at Bern ; but in spite of the hindrances
1 The Theses, in the original German, are printed by Miiller, Bekennt-
nisschriften der rcformierten Kirche (Leipzig, 1903), pp. xviii, 30 ; and in
French by Herniinjard in Corresjjondance des lUformateurs dans Ics pays
de langue fran^aise (2nd ed.), ii. 59, 60.
2 Sebastian Wagner was born at Schaffhausen in 1476. He studied at
Paris under Lascaris, taught theology in the Franciscan monastery at Zurich,
then at Constance. He adopted the Reformation, and, returning to his native
town, became its reformer.
^ Herminjard, Cor respond ance des R^formatenrSy etc. ii. 95 n.
44 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
placed in their way no less than three hundred and fifty
ecclesiastics gathered to the Disputation. The conference
was opened on January 15 th {le dimenche apHs la feste de
la circuncision),^ and was continued in German till the
24th; on the 25th a second discussion, lasting two days,
was begun, for the benefit of strangers, in Latin. " When
la Dispute des Welches (strangers) was opened, a stranger
doctor (of Paris) came forward along with some priests
speaking the same language as himself. He attacked the
Ten Theses, and William Farel, preacher at Aigle, answered
him." 2 The more distinguished Eomanist theologians who
were present seem to have refrained from taking part in
the discussion. The Bishop of Lausanne defended their
silence on the grounds that they objected to discuss such
weighty matters in the vulgar tongue ; that no opportunity
was given to them to speak in Latin ; and that when the
Emperor had interdicted the Disputation they were told
by the authorities of Bern that they might leave the city if
it so pleased them.^
The result of the Disputation was that the authorities
and citizens of Bern were confirmed in their resolve to
tidopt the Eeformation. The Disputation ended on the
26th of January (1528), and on the 7th of February
the Mass was declared to be abolished, and a sermon took
its place ; images were removed from the churches ; the
monasteries were secularised, and the funds were used
partly for education and partly to make up for the French
and papal pensions, which were now definitely renounced,
and declared to be illegal.
The two sermons which Zwingli preached in the
cathedral during the Disputation made a powerful impres-
sion on the people of Bern. It was after one of them
that M. de Watteville, the Advoyer or President of the
Republic, declared himself to be convinced of the truth of
the Evangelical faith, and with his whole family accepted
the Eeformation. His eldest son, a clergyman whose
^ Heiminjard, Corrcspondance des lUformaUurs, etc. ii. 55.
2 Ibid. ii. 99 n. 3 Udd. ii. 98 n.
THE REFORMATION OUTSIDE ZURICH 45
family interest had procured for him no less than thirteen
benefices, and who, it was commonly supposed, would be
the next Bishop of Lausanne, renounced them all to live
the life of a simple country gentleman.^
The republic of Bern for long regarded the Ten Theses
as the charter of its religious faith. Not content with
declaring the Eeformation legally established within the
city, the authorities of Bern sent despatches or delegates
to all the cities and lands under their control, inform-
ing them of what they had done, and inviting them to
follow their example. They insisted that preachers of
the Gospel must be at liberty to deliver their message
without interruption throughout all their territories.
They promised that they would maintain the liberty of
both cults until means had been taken to find out which
the majority of the inhabitants preferred, and that the
decision would be taken by vote in presence of com-
missioners sent down from Bern.^ When the majority of
^ Nicholas de Watteville, born in 1492, was canon of St. Vincent in
Bern, protonotary apostolic, prior of Montpreveyres, and provost of Lausanne.
He visited Rome in 1517, and there received the Abbey of Montheron ; and
the year following he was made a papal chamberlain to Pope Leo x. He
gave up all his benefices on December 1st, and soon afterwards married
Clara May, a nun who had left the convent of Konigsfcld. He was always
a great admirer of William Fare], and often interfered to protect tlio
impetuous Reformer from the consequences of his own rashness. His
younger brotlier, J. J. de "Watteville, became Advoyer or President of Bern,
and was a notable figure in the history of the Reformation in Switzerland.
The laraily of de Watteville is still rei^resented among the citizens of Bern.
2 As early as June 15th, 1523, the Council of Bern had issued an
ordinance for the preachers throughout their territories,' which enjoined
tliem to preach publicly and without dissimulation the Holy CJosjiel and
the doctrine of God, and to say nothing which tliey could not establish by
true and Huly Scripture ; to leave entirely alone all other doctrines and
discussions contrary to' the Gospel, and in particular the distinctive
doctrines of Luther. Later (May 21st, 1526), at a conference held between
members of the Council of Bern,. deputies from the Bernese- communes, and
delegates from the seven Roman Catholic cantons, it was agreed to permit no
innovation in matters of religion. This agreement was not maintained long ;
and the Bernese went back to their ordinance of Jun(^ 1523. It i:eems to
have been practically interpreted to mean that preachers might attack the
power of the Pope, and the doctrines of Purgatory and tlie Invocation of
Saints, but that they were not to s ly anything against the current doctrine
46 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
the parishioners accepted the Eeformation, the new
doctrinal standard was the Ten Theses, and the Council of
Bern sent directions for the method of dispensing the
Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and for the
solemnisation of marriages. The whole of the German-
speaking portion of the canton proper and its dependences
seem to have accepted the Eeformation at once. Bern had,
besides, some French-speaking districts under its own
exclusive control, and others over which it ruled along with
Freiburg. The progress of the new doctrines was slower
in these district, but it may be said that they had all
embraced the Eeformation before the end of 1530. The
history of the Eeformation in French-speaking Switzerland
belongs, however, to the next chapter, and the efforts of
Bern to evangelise its subjects in these districts will be
described there.
Not content with this, the Council of Bern constituted
itself the patron and protector of persecuted Protestants
outside their own lands, and the evangelisation of western
Switzerland owed almost everything to its fostering care.^
^Thus Bern in the west and Zurich in the east stood
orth side by side pledged to the Eeformation.
The cantonal authorities of Appenzell had declared, as
early as 1524, that Gospel preaching was to have free
course within their territories. Thomas Wyttenbach had
been people's priest in Biel from 1507, and had leavened
the town with his Evangelical preaching. In 1524 he
courageously married. The ecclesiastical authorities were
strong enough to get him deposed ; but a year or two later
tlie citizens compelled the cantonal Council to permit the
free preaching of the Gospel. Sebastian Hofmeister
preached in Schaffhausen, and induced its people to declare
of the sacraments. Cf. Decrees of the Council of Bern, quoted in Hermin-
jard, Correspondance des Riforviateurs dans les pays de langiue franqaise,
(Geneva, 1878), i. 434 ii., ii. 23 n., also 20.
^Herminjard, Crmrspondance, etc., ii. 123, 138, 199, 225, etc. In Sept.
1530, Bern wrote to the liishop of Basel, who had imprisoned Henri Pourcellet,
one of Farel's preachers : "Nous ne pouvons d'ailleurs pas tolerer que ceux
qui partagent notre foi chr^tietine soient trait^s d'une t«?lle maniere," p. 277.
THE REFORMATION OUTSIDE ZURICH 47
for the Reformation. St. Gallen was evangelised by the
Humanist Joachim von Watt (Vadianus), and by John
Kessler, who had studied at Wittenberg. In German
Switzerland only Luzern and the Forest cantons remained
completely and immovably attached to the Roman Church,
and refused to tolerate any Evangelical preaching witliin
their borders. The Swiss Confederacy was divided ecclesi-
astically into two opposite camps.
The strong religious differences could not but affect the
political cohesion of the Swiss Confederacy, linked together
as it was by ties comparatively slight. The wonder is that
they did not altogether destroy it.
As early as 1522, the Bishop of Constance had asked
the Swiss Federal Diet at their meeting at Baden to pro-
hibit the preaching of the Reformation doctrines within the
Federation ; and the next year the Diet, which met again
at Baden (Sept. 1523), issued a declaration that all who
practised religious innovations were worthy of punishment.
The deputies from Luzern were especially active in inducing
the Diet to pass this resolution. The attempt to use the
Federation for the purpose of religious persecution, therefore,
first came from the Romanist side. Nor did they content
themselves with declarations in the Diet. The Romanist
canton of Unterwalden, being informed, that some of, the
peasants in the Bernese Oberland had complained, that the
Reformation had been forced upon them, crossed the
Bernese frontier and committed an act of war. Bern
smarted under the insult.
These endeavours on the part of his opponents led
Zwingli to meditate on plans for leaguing together for the
purposes of mutual defence all who had accepted the
Reformation. His plans from the first went beyond the
Swiss Confederacy.
The imperial city of Constance, the seat of the diocese
which claimed ecclesiastical authority over Zuricli, had
been mightily moved by the preaching of Ambrose Blaarer,
and had come over to the Protestant faith. The bishop
retired to Meersburg and his chapter to Ueberlingen.
48 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
The city feared the attack of Austria, and craved protection
from the Swiss Protestants. Its alliance was valuable to
them, for, along with Lindau, it commanded the whole Lake
of Constance. Zurich thereupon asked that Constance be
admitted within the Swiss Federation. This was refused
by the Federal Diet (Nov. 1527). Zurich then entered
into a Christian Civic League (das christliche Biirgerrecht)
with Constance, — a league based on their common religious
beliefs, — promising to defend each other if attacked. The
example once set was soon followed, and the two following
years saw the League increasing rapidly. Bern joined in
June 1528, St. Gallen in Nov. 1528, Biel in January,
Miihlhausen in February, Basel in March, and Schaffhausen
in October, 1529. Strassburg was admitted in January
1530. Even Hesse and Wiirtemburg wished to join.
Bern and Zurich came to an agreement that Evangelical
preaching must be allowed in the Common Lands, and that
no one was to be punished for his religious opinions.
The combination looked so threatening and contained
such possibilities that Ferdinand of Austria proposed a
counter-league among the Eomanist cantons; and a
Christian Union, in which Luzern, Zug, Schwyz, Uri, and
Unterwalden allied themselves with the Duchy of Austria,
was founded in 1529, having for its professed objects tlie
preservation of the mediieval religion, with some reforms
carried out under the guidance of the ecclesiastical authori-
ties. The Confederates pledged themselves to secure for
each other the right to punish heretics. This League had
also its possibilities of extension. It was thought that
Bavaria and Salzburg might join. The canton of the
Valais had already leagued itself with Savoy against Geneva,
and brought its ally within the Christian Union. The
very formation of the Leagues threatened war, and occa-
sions of hostilities were not lacking. Austria was eager
to attack Constance, and Bern longed to punish Unterwalden
for its unprovoked invasion of Bernese territory. The con-
dition and protection of the Evangelical population in the
Common Lands and in the Free Bailiwicks demanded
THE REFORMATION OUTSIDE ZURICH 49
settlement, more especially as the Eomanist cantons had
promised to support each other in asserting their right to
punish heretics. War seemed to be inevitable. Schaff-
hausen, Appenzell, and the Graubiinden endeavoured to
mediate ; but as neither Zurich nor Bern would listen to
any proposals which did not include the right of free
preaching, their efforts were in vain. The situation,
difficult enough, was made worse by the action of the
canton of Schwyz, which, having caught a Zurich pastor
named Kaiser on its territory, had him condemned and
burnt as a heretic. This was the signal for war. It was
agreed that the Zurichers should attjiok the Eomanist
cantons, while Bern defended the Common Lands, and, if
need^ be, the territory of her sister canton. The plan of
campaign was drafted by Zwingli himself, who also laid
•down the conditions of peace. His proposals were, that
the Forest cantons must allow the free preaching of the
Gospel within their lands ; that they were to forswear
pensions from any external Power, and that all- who
received them should be punished both corporeally and by
fine ; that the alliance with Austria should be given up ;
and that a war indemnity should be paid to Zurich and to
Bern. While the armies were facing each other the
Zurichers received a strong appeal from Hans Oebli, the
Landammann of Glarus, to listen to the proposals of tlie
enemy. The common soldiers disliked the internecine
strife. They looked upon each other as brothers, and the
outposts of both armies were fraternising. In these cir-
cumstances the Zurich army (for it was the Swiss custom
that the armies on the field concluded treaties) accepted the
terms of peace offered by their opponents. The treaty is
known as the First Peace of Kappel (June 1529). It pro-
vided that the alliance between -Austria and the Eomanist
cantons should be dissolved, and the treaties " pierced and
slit " (the parchments were actually cut in pieces by the
dagger in sight of all) ; that in the Common Lauds no one
was to be persecuted for his religious opinions ; that the
majority should decide whether the old faith was to be
4
50 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
retained or not, and that bailiffs of moderate opinions
should be sent to rule them ; that neither party should
attack the other because of religion ; that a war indemnity
should be paid by the Eomanist cantons to Zurich and
Bern (the amount was fixed at 2500 Sonnenkronen) ; and
that the abolition of foreign pensions and mercenary service
should be recommended to Luzern and the Forest cantons.
The treaty contained the seeds of future war ; for the
Zurichers believed that they had secured the right of free
preaching within the Eomanist cantons, while these cantons
believed that they had been left to regulate their own
internal economy as they pleased. Zwingli would have
preferred a settlement after war, and the future justified
his apprehensions.
Three months after the First Peace of Kappel, Zwingli
was summoned to the Marburg Colloquy, and the Eeforma-
tion in Switzerland became inevitably connected with the
wider sphere of German ecclesiastical politics. It may be
well, however, to reserve this until later, and finish the
internal history of the Swiss movement.
The First Peace of Kappel was only a truce, and
left both parties irritated with each other. The friction
was increased when the Protestants discovered that the
Eomanist cantons would not admit free preaching wdthin
their territories. They also shrewdly suspected that,
despite the tearing and burning of the documents, the
understanding with Austria was still maintained. An
event occurred which seemed to justify their suspicions.
An Italian condottiere, Giovanni Giacomo de' Medici,, had
seized and held (1525—31) the strong position called the
Eocco di Musso on the Lake of Como, and from this
stronghold he dominated the whole lake. This ruffian
had murdered Martin Paul and his son, envoys from the
Graubiinden to Milan, and had crossed the lake and
harried the fertile valley of the Adda, known as
the Val Tellina, which was then within the territories
of the Graubiinden (Grisons). The Swiss Confederacy
were bound to defend their neiglibours ; but when appeal
THE REFORMATION OUTSIDE ZURICH 51
was made, the Eomanist cantons refused, and the hand
of Austria was seen behind the refusal. Besides, at the
Federal Diets the Eomanist cantons had refused to listen
to any complaints of persecutions for rehgion within
their lands. At a meeting between Zurich and her allies,
it was resolved that the Eomanist cantons should be
compelled to abolish the system of foreign pensions, and
permit free preaching within their territories. Zurich
was for open war, but the advice of Bern prevailed. It
w^as resolved that if the Eomanist cantons would not
agree to these proposals, Zurich and her allies should,
prevent wine, wheat, salt, and iron from passing through
their territories to the Forest cantons. The result was
that 'the Forest cantons declared war, invaded Zurich
while that canton was unprepared, fought and won the
battle of Kappel, at which Zwingli was slain. He had
accompanied the little army of Zurich as its chaplain.
The victory of the Eomanists produced a Second Peace of
Kappel which reversed the conditions of the first. War
incTemnities were exacted from most of the Protestant
cantons. It was settled that each canton was to be
left free to manage its own religious affairs ; that the
Christian Civic League was to be dissolved ; and a number
of particular provisions were made which practically
secured the rights of Eomanist without corresponding
advantages to Protestant minorities. The territories of
Zurich were left untouched, but the city was compelled
by the charter of Kappel to grant rights to, her rural
districts. She bound herself to consult them in all
important matters, and particularly not to make war or
peace without their consent.
As a result of this ruinous defeat, and of the death of
Zwingli which accompanied it, "Zurich lost her place as
the leading Protestant canton, and the guidance of the
Eeformation movement fell more and more into the hands
of Geneva, which was an ally but not a member of the
Confederation. Another and more important permanent
result of this Second Peace of Ka]^pel was that it was
52 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
seen in Switzerland as in Germany that while the
Eeformation could not be destroyed, it could not win for
itself the whole country, and that Roman Catholics and
Protestants must divide the cantons and endeavour to
live peaceably side by side.
The history of the Reformation in Switzerland after the
death of Zwingli is so linked with the wider history of the
movement in Germany and in Geneva, that it can scarcely
be spoken about separately. It is also intimately related
to the differences which separated Zwingli from Luther
in the doctrine of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
§ 7. The Sacramental Controversy}
In the Bern Disputation of 1528, the fourth thesis
said " it cannot be proved from the Scripture that the
Body and Blood of Christ are substantially and cor-
poreally received in the Eucharist," ^ and the statement
became a distinctive watchword of the early Swiss
Reformation. This thesis, a negative one, was perhaps
the earliest official statement of a bold attempt to get
rid of the priestly miracle in the Mass, which was the
strongest theoretical and practical obstacle to the acceptance
of the fundamental Protestant thought of the spiritual
priesthood of all believers. The question had been seriously
exercising the attention of all the leading theologians of
the Reformation, and this very trenchant way of dismissing
it had suggested itself simultaneously to theologians in
the Low Countries, in the district of the Upper Rhine,
, * Sources : E. F. K. Mliller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformi&rten
Kirche (Leipzig, 1903), pp. 1-100 ; Hospinian, Historia Sacramentariay
2 vols. (Geneva, 1681).
Later Books : Ebrard, Das Dogma vom heiligen Ahendmahl und seine
G'gsc^tc/ife (Frankfurt a M. 1845-46), vol. ii. ; Schweizer, Die jjrotestantischen
Centraldogmen in ihrer Entwickelung innerhalh der reformierten Kirche
(Zurich, 1854-56) ; Hundeshagen, Die Konflikte des Zwinglianismus,
Lutherthums, und Calvinismus in den Bcrnischcn Landkirchen 1522-
1558^ nach mcist ungedruckten Quellen dargestelt{Bem, 1842) ; compare also
vol. i. 352 tf.
- Miillcc, Die Bekenntnisschriften des rcfoi'tniertcn Kirche, p. 30.
THE SACRAMENTAL CONTROVERSY 53
and in many of the imperial cities. It had been pro-
claimed in all its naked simplicity by Andrew Bodenstein
of Carlstadt, the theologian of the German democracy;
but it was Zwingh who worked at the subject care-
fully, and who had produced a reasonable if somewhat
defective theory based on a rather shallow exegesis, iu
which the words of our Lord, " This is My Body," were
declared to mean nothing but " This sigiiifies My Body."
Luther, always disposed to think harshly of anything that
came from Carlstadt, inchned to exaggerate his influence
with the German Protestant democracy, believing with his
whole heart that in the Sacrament of the Holy Supper
the elements Bread and Wine were more than the bare
signs of the Body and Blood of the Lord, was vehemently
moved to find such views concerning a central doctrine
of Christianity spreading through his beloved Germany.
He never paused to ask whether the opinions he saw
adopted with eagerness in most of the imperial cities
were really different from those of Carlstadt (for that is
one of the sad facts in this deplorable controversy). He
simply denounced them, and stormed against Zwingli,
whose name was spread abroad as their author and
propagator. Niirnberg was almost the only great city
that remained faithful to him. It was the only city
also which was governed by the ancient patriciate, and
in which the democracy had little . or no power. AVhen
van Hoen and Karl Stadt in the Netherlands, Hedio at
Mainz, Conrad Sam at Ulm, when the preachers of
Augsburg, Strassburg, Frankfurt, Ptcutlingen,' and ullier
cities accepted and taught Zwingli's doctrine of. the
Eucharist, Luther and his immediate circle saw a great
deal more than a simple division in doctrine. It was
something more than the meaning of the Holy Supper or
the exegesis of a difficult" text which rent Protestantism
in two, and made Luther and Zwingli appear as the
leaders of opposing parties in a movement where union
was a supreme necessity after the decision at Spcyer in
1529. The tlict>l<';,ucal question was complicaltd ]>y
54 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
social and political ideas, which, if not acknowledged
openly, were at least in the minds of the leaders who
took sides in the dispute. On the one side were men
whom Luther held to be in part responsible for the
Peasants' War, who were the acknowledged leaders of
that democracy which he had learnt to distrust if not to
fear, who still wished to link the Eeformation to vast
political schemes, all of which tdnded to weaken the
imperial power by means of French and other alliances,
and who only added to their other iniquities a theological
theory which, he honestly believed, would take away from
believers their comforting assurance of union with their
Lord in the Sacrament of the Holy Supper.
The real theological difference after all did not
amount to so much as is generally said. Zwingli's
doctrine of the Holy Supper was not the crude theory
of Carlstadt ; and Luther might have seen this if he had
only fairly examined it. The opposed views were, in fact,
complementary, and the pronounced ideas of each were
implicitly, though not expressly, held by the other. Luther
and Zwingli approached the subject from two different
points of view, and in debate they neither understood nor
were exactly facing each other.
The whole Christian Church, during all the centuries,
has found three great ideas embodied in the Sacrament of
the Holy Supper, and all three have express reference to
the death of the Saviour on the Cross for His people.
The thoughts are Proclamation, Commemoration, and
Participation or Communion. In the Supper, believers
proclaim the death and what it means ; they commemorate
the Sacrifice ; and they partake in or have communion
with the crucified Christ, who is also the Eisen Saviour.
The mediaival Church had insisted that this sacramental
union with Christ was in the hands of the priesthood to
give or to withhold. Duly ordained priests, and they
alone, could bring the worshippers into such a relation
with Christ as would make the Sacramental participation
a possible thing ; and out of this claim had grown the
THE SACRAMENTAL CONTROVERSY 55
mediaeval theory of Transubstantiation. It had also
divided the Sacrament of the Supper into two distinct
rites (the phrase is not too strong) — the Mass and the
Eucharist — the one connecting itself instinctively with the
commemoration and the other with the participation.
Protestants united in denying the special priestly
miracle needed to bring Christ and His people together in
the Sacrament ; but it is easy to see that they might
approach the subject by the two separate paths of Mass
or Eucharist. ZwingU took the one road and Luther
happened on the other.
Zwingli believed that the mediaeval Church had dis-
placed the scriptural thought of commemoration, and put
the ]^on-scriptural idea of repetition in its place. Eor the
mediaeval priest claimed that in virtue of the miraculous
power given in ordination, he could really change the
bread and wine into the actual physical Body of Jesus, and,
when this was done, that he could reproduce over again
the agony of the Cross by crushing it with his teeth. - This
idea seemed to Zwingli to be utterly profane ; it dishonoured
the One great Sacrifice ; it was unscriptural ; it depended
on a priestly gift of working a miracle which did not exist.
Then he believed that the sixth chapter of St. John's
Gospel forbade all thought that spiritual benefits could
come from a mere partaking with the mouth. It w^as the
atonement worked out by Christ's death that was appropri-
ated and commemorated in the Holy Supper ; and the
atonement is always received by faith. Thus the two
principal thoughts in the theory of Zwingli are, that the
mediaeval doctrine must be purified by changing the idea
of repetition of the death of Christ for commemoration of
that death, and the thought of manducating with the teeth
for that of faith which is the faculty by which spiritual
benefits are received. But Zwingli believed that a living
faith always brought with it the presence of Christ, for
there can be no true faith without actual spiritual contact
with the Saviour. Therefore Zwingli held that there was
a Ecal Presence of Christ in the Holy Supper; but a
56 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
spiritual presence brought by the faith of the beUeving
communicant and not by the elements of Bread and Wine,
which were only the signs representing a Body which was
corporeally absent. The defect of this theory is that it
does not make the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament in
any way depend on the ordinance ; there is no sacramental
presence other than what there is in any act of faith. It
was not until ZwingU had elaborated his theory that he
sought for and found an explanation of the words of our
Lord, and taught that This is My Body, must mean This,
signifies My Body. His theory was entirely different from
that of Carlstadt, with which Luther always identified it.
Luther approached the whole subject by a different
path. What repelled him in the mediaeval docrine of the
Holy Supper was the way in which he believed it to
trample on the spiritual priesthood of all beUevers. He
protested against Transubstantiation and private Masses,
because they were the most flagrant instances of that
contempt. When he first preached on the subject (1519)
it was to demand the " cup " for the laity, and he makes
use of an expression in his sermon which reveals how his
thoughts were tending. He says that in the Sacrament of
the Holy Supper " the communicant is so united to Christ
a7id His saints, that Christ's life and sufferings and the lives
and sufferings of the saints become his." No one held more
strongly than Luther that the Atonement was made by
our Lord, and by Him alone. Therefore he cannot be
thinking of the Atonement when he speaks of union with
the lives and the sufferings of the saints. He believes
that the main thing in the Sacrament is that it gives such
a companionship with Jesus as His disciples and saints have
had. There was, of course, a reference to the death of
Christ and to the Atonement, for apart from that death
no companionship is possible ; but the reference is indirect,
and through the thought of the fellowship. In the Sacra-
ment we touch Christ as His disciples might have touched
Him when He lived on earth, and as His glorified saints
touch Him now. This reference, therefore, clearly shows
THE SACRAMENTAL CONTROVERSY 57
that Luther saw in the Sacrament of the Supper the
presence of the glorified Body of our Lord, and that the
primary use of the Sacrament was to bring the com-
municant into contact with that glorified Body. This
required a presence (and Luther thought a presence
extended in space) of the glorified Body of Christ in the
Sacrament in order that the communicant might be
in actual contact with it. But communion with the LiviD<'
Christ impUes the appropriation of the death of Christ, and
of the Atonement won by His death. Thus the reference
to the Crucified Christ which Zwingli reaches directly,
Luther attains indirectly ; and the reference to the Living
Eisen Christ which Zwingli reaches indirectly, Luther
attains directly. Luther avoided the need of a priestly
miracle to bring the Body extended in space into immediate
connection with the elements Bread and Wine, by intro-
ducing a scholastic theory of what is meant by presence
in Space. A body may be present in Space, said the
Schoolmen, in two ways : it may be present in such a way
that it excludes from the space it occupies any other body,
or it may be present occupying the same space with
another body.^ The Glorified Body of Christ can be present
in the latter manner. It was so when our Lord after His
Eesurrection appeared suddenly among His disciples in a
room when the doors were shut ; for then at some moment
of time it must have occupied the same space as a portion
of the walls or of the door. Christ's glorified Body can
therefore be naturally in the elements without any special
miracle, for it is ubiquitous. It is in the table at whicli
I write, said Luther; in the stone which I hurl through
the air. It is in the elements in the Holy Supper in a
perfectly natural way, and needs no priestly miracle to
bring it there. This natural presence of the Body of
Christ in the elements in the Supper is changed into a
Sacramental Presence by the promise of God, which is
attached to the reverent and believing partaking of tlie
Holy Supper.
These were the two theories which ostensibly divided
58 THE REFORM ATION IN SWITZERLAND
the Protestants in 1529 into two parties, the one of which
was led by Zwingli and the other by Luther. They were
not so antagonistic that they could not be reconciled. Each
theologian held implicitly what the other declared explicitly.
ZwingH placed the relation to the Death of Christ in the
foreground, but implicitly admitted the relation to the
Risen Christ — going back to the view held in the Early
Church. Luther put fellowship with the Risen Christ in
the foreground, but admitted the reference to the Crucified
Christ — accepting the mediseval way of looking at the
matter. The one had recourse to a very shallow exegesis
to help him, and the other to a scholastic theory of space ;
and naturally, but unfortunately, when controversy arose,
the disputant attacked the weakest part of his opponent's
theory — Luther, Zwingli's exegesis ; and Zwingli, Luther's
scholastic theory of spatial presence.
The attempt to bring about an understanding between
Luther and Zwingli, made by Philip of Hesse, the confidant
of Zwingli, and in sympathy with the Swiss Reformer's
schemes of political combination, has already been
mentioned, and its failure related.^ It need not be dis-
cussed again. But for the history of the Reformation in
Switzerland it is necessary to say something about the
further progress of this Sacramental controversy. Calvin
gradually won over the Swiss Protestants to his views ; and
his theory, which at one time seemed about to unite the
divided Protestants, must be alluded to.
\ Calvin began his study of the doctrine of the Sacra-
ment of the Holy Supper independently of both Luther
and Zwingli. His position as the theologian of Switzer-
land, and his friendship with his colleague William Farel,
who was a Zwinglian, made him adapt his theory to
Zwinglian language ; but he borrowed nothing from the
Reformer of Zurich. He was quite willing to accept
Zwingli's exegesis so far as the words went ; but he gave
another and altogether different meaning to Zwingli'.s
phrase, This signifies My Body. He was willing to call
' Cf. vol. i. 352 flF.
THE SACRAMENTAL CONTROVERSY 59
the " elements " signs of the Body and Blood of the Lord ;
but while Zwingli called them signs which represent (signa
representativa) what was absent, Calvin insisted on calling
them signs which exhibit (signa exhibitiva) what was present
—a distinction which is continually forgotten in describing
his relation to the theories of Zwingli, and one which
enabled him to ^convince Luther that he held that there
was a Eeal Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament of
the Holy Supper. To describe minutely Calvin's doctrine
of the Holy Supper would require more space than can be
given here, and a brief statement of the central thoughts is
alone possible. His aim in common with all the Reformers
was to construct a doctrine of the Sacrament of the Supper
which would be at once scriptural, free from superstition
and' from the crass materialist associations which had
gathered round the theory of transubstantiation, and which
would clearly conserve the great Eeformation proclamation
of the spiritual priesthood of all believers. He went back
to the mediaeval idea of transubstantiation, and asked
whether it gave a true conception of what was meant by
substance. He decided that it did not, and believed that
the root thought in substance was not dimensions in space,
but power. The substance of a body consists in its power,
active and passive, and the presence of the substance of any-
thing consists in the immediate application of that power.^
When Luther and Zwingli had spoken of the substance of
the Body of Christ, they had always in their mind the
thought of something extended in space ; and the one
affirmed while the other denied that this Body of Christ,
something extended in space, could be and was present in
the Sacrament of the Supper. Calvin's conception of
substance enabled him to say that wherever anything acts
there it is. He denied the crude " substantial " presence
which Luther insisted .on ; and in this he sided with
Zwingli. But he affirmed a real because active presence,
and in this he sided with Luther.
Calvin's view had been accepted definitely by
* Leibnitz, Fcuaecs de Leibnitz, '2nJ eJ. (Paris, 1S03) p. 106.
60 THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND
Melanchthon, and somewhat indefinitely by Luther.
Ine imperial cities, led by Strassburg, which was under
the influence of Bucer, who had thought out for himself
a doctrine not unlike that of Calvin, had been included in
the Wittenberg Concord (May 1536); but Luther would
have nothing to do with the Swiss. As it was vain to
hope that Switzerland would be included in any Lutheran
alliance, Calvin set himself to produce dogmatic harmony
in Switzerland. In conjunction with Bullinger, Zwingli's
son-in-law and successor in Zurich, he drafted the Conse7isus
of Zurich (Consensus Tigurimis) in 1549.^ The document
is Calvinist in theology and largely Zwinglian in language.
It was accepted with some difficulty in Basel and in Bern,
and heartily in Biel, Schaffhausen, Miihlhausen, and St.
Gallen. It ended dogmatic disputes in Protestant Switzer-
land, which was thus united under the one creed.
This does not mean any increase of Protestantism within
Switzerland. The Eomanist cantons drew more closely
together. Cardinal Carlo Borromeo of Milan took a deep
interest in the counter-Eeformation in Switzerland. He
introduced the Jesuits into Luzern and the Forest cantons,
and after his death tliose cantons formed a league which
included Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Zug, Unterwalden, Freiburg,
and Solothurn (1586). This League (the Borromean League)
pledged its members to maintain the Eoman Catholic
faith. The lines of demarcation between Protestant and
Eomanist cantons in Switzerland practically survive to
the present day.
^ Miiller, Die Bekenntnisschri/ten der reforviierUn Kirche, p. 159.
CHAPTER III.
THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN.^
§ 1. Geneva.
Geneva, which was to be the citadel of the Eeformed
faith in Europe, had a history which prepared it for the
part' it was destined to play.
The ancient constitution of the town, solemnly pro-
mulgated in 1387, recognised three difi'erent authorities
within its walls : the Bishop, who was the sovereign or
" Prince " of the city ; the Count, who had possession of
the citadel ; and the Free Burghers. The first act of the
^ Sources : Memoires et documents publics par la SocUte d'histoire et
d'archceologie de Geneve (especially vols. ii. v. ix. xv. xx.) ; Froment, Les
Ades et gestes marveilleux de la cite de Geneve (ed. of 1854 by G. Revillod) ;
La Soeur Jeanne de Jussie, Le levain du Calvinisme (ed. of 1865) ; G. Faiel,
Lettres certaines d'aucuns grandz troubles et tuvmltes advenuz a Geneve, avec
la disputation faicte Van 1534 (Basel, 1588) ; Eegistres dii Conseil de Genere
(known to me only through the extracts given by Herminjard, Doumergue,
and others); Herminjard. Correspondance des Rdformateurs dans les pay x dK
langue fran(;ais% 9 vols. (Geneva, etc., vols. i. ii. in a 2nd edition, 1878,
vols, iii.-ix. 1870-97) ; Calvin, Opera omnia, vols, xxix.-lxxxvii. of the
Corpus Eeformatorum (Brunswick and Berlin, 1869-97); Bonnet, Lettres
fran<;aises de Jean Calvin (Paris, 1854) ; Beza, Vita Calvini (vol. xlix. of the
Corpus Refonnatorum) ; Rilliet, Le premier catechisme de Calvini (Paris,
1878).
Later Works : Doumergue, Jean Calvin, les hovimcs et les choses de
son temps {only three vols, published, Lausanne, 1899, 1902, 1905) ; Bungener,
Jean Calvin, sa vie, son ceuvrc et- ses tcrits (Paris, 1862-63)'; Kanipschulte,
Johann Calvin, seine Kirche und seine Stadt in (?c?!/ (Leipzig, 1869-99) ;
A. Roget, Hidoire du peuple de Geneve depv is la Beforme jusqu' a V escalade
(Geneva, 1870-83) ; Dunant, Les relations politiqucs dc Gcnivc avec Berne et
les Stcisses de 1536-64 (Geneva, 1894) ; Ruchat, Histoirc de la Reformation
de Icu Suisse, ed. by Vulliemin (Paris and Lausanne, 1835-38).
61
62 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
Bishop on his nomination was to go to the Church of St.
Peter and swear on the Missal that he would maintain the
civic rights. The House of Savoy had succeeded to the
countship of Geneva, and they were represented within
the town by a viceroy, who was called the Count or
Vidomne. He was the supreme justiciary. The citizens
were democratically organised. They met once a year in a
recognised civic assembly to elect four Syndics to be their
rulers and representatives. It was the Syndics who in
their official capacity heard the oaths of the Bishop and of
the Vidomne to uphold the rights and privileges of the town.
They kept order within the walls from sunrise to sunset.
These three separate authorities were frequently in
conflict, and in the triangular duel the citizens and the
Bishop were generally in alliance against the House of
Savoy and its viceroy. The consequence was thab few
mediaeval cities under ecclesiastical rule were more loyal
than Geneva was to its Bishop, so long as he respected the
people's rights and stood by them against their feudal lords
when they attempted oppression.
In the years succeeding 1444 the hereditary loyalty
to their bishops had to stand severe tests. Count
Amadeus viii. of Savoy, one of the most remarkable men
of the fifteenth century, — he ascended the papal throne
and resigned the Pontificate to become a hermit, — used
his pontifical power to possess himself of the bishopric.
From that date onwards the Bishop of Geneva was almost
always a member of the House of Savoy, and the rights
of the citizens were for the most part disregarded. The
bishopiic became an appanage of Savoy, and boys (one of
ten years of age, another of seventeen) and bastards ruled
from the episcopal chair.
After long endurance a party formed itself among the
townspeople vowed to restore the old rights of the city.
They called themselves, or were named by others, the
Eidgueiiots {Eidgcnossen) ; while the partisans of the Bishop
and of the House of Savoy were termed Mamelukes^ because,
it was said, they had forsaken Christianity.
GENEVA 63
In their difficulties the Genevans turned to the Swiss
cantons nearest them and asked to be allied with Freiburg
and Bern. Freiburg consented, and an alHance was made
in 1519; but Bern, an aristocratic rei^ublic, was unwilhncr
to meddle in the struggle of a democracy in a town outside
the Swiss Confederacy. The citizens of Bern, more
sympathetic than their ruleis, compelled them to make
alliance with Geneva in 1526, — very half-heartedly on
the part of the Bernese Council.
The Swiss cantons, Bern especially, could not in their
own interest see the patriotic party in Geneva wholly
crushed, and the "gate of Western Switzerland" left
completely in possession of the House of Savoy. There-
fore, when the Bishop assembled an army for the purpose
of effectually crushing all opposition within the town,
Bern and Freiburg collected their forces and routed the
troops of Savoy. But the allies, instead of using to the
full the advantage they had gained, were content with a
compromise by which the Bishop remained the lord of
Geneva, while the rights of the Vidomne were greatly
curtailed, and the privileges of the townsmen were to be
respected (Oct. 19th, 1530).
From this date onwards Geneva was governed by
what was called le Petit Cons'eil, and was generally spoken
of as the Council ; then a Council of Two Hundred, framed
on the model of those of Freiburg and Bern ; lastly, by the
Conseil General, or assembly of the citizens. All important
transactions were first submitted to and deliberated on by
the Petit Conseil, which handed them on with tlieir opinion
of what ought to be done to the Council of the. Two
Hundred. No change of situation— for example, the
adoption of the Eeformation — was finally adopted until
submitted to the General Council of all the burghers.
It is possible that had there seemed to be any immediate
prospects that Geneva would join' the Eeformation,
Bern would have aided the patriots more effectually.
Bern was the great Protestant Power in Western Switzer-
land. Its uniform policy, since 1528, had been to
64 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
constitute itself the protector of towns and districts where
a majority of the inhabitants were anxious to take the
side of the Eeformation and were hindered by their over-
lords. It made alliances with the towns in the territories
of the Bishop of Basel, and enabled them to assert their
independence. In May (23rd) 1532 it warned the Duke
of Savoy that if he thought of persecuting the inhabitants
of Pay erne because of their religion, it would make their
cause its own, and declared that its alliance with the town
was much more ancient than any existing between Bern
and the Duke.^ But the case of Geneva was different.
Signs, indeed, were not lacking that many of the people
were inclined to the Eeformation.^ It is more than prob-
able that some of the members of the Councils were
longing for a religious reform But however much in
earnest the reformers might be, they were in a minority,
and it was no part of the policy of Bern to interfere
without due call in the internal administration of the
city ; still less to see the rise of a strong and independent
Eoman Catholic city-republic on its own western border.
Suddenly, in the middle of 1532, Geneva was thrown
into a state of violent religious commotion. Pope Clement
VII. had published an Indulgence within the city on the
usual conditions. On the morning of June 9th, the
citizens found posted up on all the doors of the churches
great printed placards, announcing that " plenary pardon
would be granted to every one for all their sins on the
one condition of repentance, and a living faith in the
^ Ruchat, Histoire de la Reformation de la Suisse (Paris, 1835-38),
iii. 138.
2 We read of Luther's books being read in Geneva as early as May 1521,
and' that their effect was to give several of the people heart to care little for
the threats of tlie Pope ; in 1522, Cornelius Agrippa, writing to Capito
(June 17th), and Haller, writing to Zvvingli (July 8th), speak of Francis
Lambert {vir probits et diligens minister Verbi Dei), who had preached in
Geneva, Lausanne, Freiburg, and Bern ; and in 1527, Hofen, secretary to
the Council of Bern, writing to Zwingli (Jan. 15th), thinks that Geneva
could be won for the Reformation, — lie had noticed that the people no longer
cared much for Indulgences or for the Mass (Herminjard, Correspondance, etc.
i. 101-3, 318 n.y ii. 9 f., 10 n. ; cf. 6).
GENEVA 65
promises of Jesus Christ." The city was moved to its
depths. Priests rushed to tear the placards down.
" Lutherans " interfered. Tumults ensued ; and one of the
canons of the cathedral, Pierre Werly, was wounded in the
arm.^
The Eomanists, both inside and outside .the town,
were inclined to believe that the affair meant more than
it really did. Freiburg had been very suspicious of the
influence of the great Protestant canton of Bern, perhaps
not without reason. In March (7th) 1532, the deputies
of Geneva had been blamed by the inhabitants of Freiburg
for being inclined to Lutheranism, and it is more than
likely that the Evangelicals of Geneva had some private
dealings with the Council of Bern, and had been told that
the times were not ripe for any open action on the part
of the Protestant canton. The affair of the placards,
witnessing as it did the increased strength of the
Evangelical party, reawakened suspicions and intensified
alarms. A deputy from Freiburg appeared before the
Council of Geneva, complaining of the placards,^ and of
the distribution of heretical literature in the city of Geneva
(June 24th). ^ The Papal Nuncio wrote from Chambery
(July 8 th), asking if it were true, as was publicly re-
ported, that the Lutheran heresy was openly professed and
taught in the houses, churches, and even in the schools
of Geneva.^ The letter of the Nuncio was (dismissed
with a careless answer ; but Freiburg had to be contented.
^ J. A. Gautier, Histoire de Geneve (Geneva, 1896), ii. 349. The nun,
Soeur Jeanne de Jussie, in her Levain du Calvinisme (p. 46), says " Au mois
de Juin, dimanche matin, le 9, certain nombre de niauvais garcons }»lan-
terent grands placards en impression par toutes les portes des egliscs de
Geneve, esquels estoient contenus les principaux poincts de la secte perverse
lutherienne " ; and another contemporary chronicler says that the placards
promised a *' grand pardon general de Jesus Christ " (Herminjard, Corresjwnd-
ance, etc. ii. 422 n. ). •
" Their letter said that it was reported that " nonnuUos ex Gebennensibus
apposuisse certas cedulas inductorias ad novam legem, contra auctoritatem
ejiiscopalem, et quod habent libros et promulgant ; quod est contra volun-
tatem D. Friburgensium " (Ibid. ii. 421 n.).
=* Ibid. ii. 424.
66 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
Two extracts from the Eegister of the Council quoted by
Herminjard show their anxiety to satisfy Freiburg and
yet bear evidence of a very moderate zeal for the Eomanist
religion. They decided (June 29th) that no schoolmaster
was to be allowed to preach in the town unless specially
licensed by the vicar or the Syndics ; and (June 30th) they
resolved to request the vicar to see that the Gospel and the
Epistle of the day were read " truthfully without being
mixed up with fables and other inventions of men " ; they
added that they meant to live as their fathers, without any
innovations.^
The excitement had not died down when Farel arrived
in the city in the autumn of 1532. He preached quietly
in houses ; but his coming was known, and led to some
tumults. He and his companions, Saunier and Olivetan,
were seized and sent out of the city. The Eeformation
had begun, and, in spite of many hindrances, was destined
to be successful.
§ 2. The Reforrfiation in Western Switzerland.
The conversion of Geneva to the Eeformed faith was
[the crown of a work which had been promoted by the
I canton of Bern ever since its Council had decided, in
1528, to adopt the Eeformation. Bern itself belonged to
German-speaking Switzerland, but it had extensive posses-
sions i]i the French-speaking districts. It was the only
State strong enough to confront the Dukes of Savoy, and
was looked upon as a natural protector against that House
and other feudal principalities. Its position may be seen
in its relations to the Pays de Vaud. The Pays de
Vaud consisted of a confederacy of towns and small feudal
estates owning fealty to the House of Savoy. The nobles,
the towns, and in some instances the clergy, sent deputies
to a Diet wliich me*" at Moudon under the presidency of
the " governor and bailli de Vaud," who represented the
Duke of Savoy. A large portion of the country had
^ Herminjard, Cori'espondance, ii. 425 n.
THE REFORMATION IN WESTERN SWITZERLAND 67
broken away from Savoy at different periods durincr the
fifteenth century. Lausanne and eight other smaller
towns and" districts formed the patrimony of the Prince-
Bishop of Lausanne. The cantons of Freiburg and Bei n
ruled jointly over Orbe, Grandson, and Morat. Bern had
become the sole ruler over what were called the four
commanderies of Aigle, Ormonts, Ollon, and Bex. These
four commanderies were outlying portions of Beni, and
were entirely under the rule of its Council. When Bern
had accepted the Keformation, it naturally wished its de-
pendencies to follow its example ; and its policy wa&
always directed to induce other portions of the Pays de
Vaud to become Protestant also. Farel, the Apostle of
French-speaking Switzerland, might almost be called an
agent of the Council of Bern.
Its method of work may be best seen by taking the
examples of Aigle and Lausanne, the one its own posses-
sion and the other belonging to the Prince-Bishop, who
was its political ruler.
William Farel, once a member of the " group of
Meaux," whom we have already seen active at the
Disputation in Bern in the beginning of 1528, had settled
at Aigle_in 1526, probably by the middle of November.^
He did so, he says in his memoir to the Council of Bern — -
"With the intention of opening a school to instruct the
youth in virtue and learning, and in order to procure for
myself the necessities of life. Received at once with
brotherly good-will by some of the burghers of the place,
I was asked by them to preach the Word of God before
the Governor, who was then at Bern, had returned. I
acceded to their request. But as soon as the Governor
returned I asked his permission to keep the school, and by
acquaintances also asked him to permit me to preach. The
Governor acceded to their request, but on condition that I
preached nothing but the pure simple clear Word of God
according to the Old and New Testament, without any
addition contrary to the Word, and without attacking the
Holy Sacraments. ... I promised to conform myself to the
1 Cf. p. 39, n.
68 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
will of the Governor, and declared myself ready to submit
to any punishment he pleased to inliict upon me if I dis-
obeyed his orders or acted in any way recognised to be
contrary to the Word of God/' ^
This was the beginning of a work which gradually spread
over French-speaking Switzerland.
The Bishop of Sion, within whose diocese Aigle was
situated, published an order forbidding all wandering
preachers who had not his episcopal licence from preaching
within the confines of his diocese ; and this appears to
have been used against Farel. Some representation must
have been made to the Council of Bern, who indignantly
declared that no one was permitted to publish citations,
excommunications, interdicts, ne autres fanfares within their
territories ; but at the same time ordered Farel to cease
preaching, because he had never been ordained a priest
(February 22nd, 1527).^ The interdict did not last very
long ; for a minute of Council (March 8th) says, " Farel
is permitted to preach at Aigle until the Coadjutor sends
another capable priest."^ Troubles arose from priests
and monks, but upon the whole the Council of Bern
supported him ; and Haller and others wrote from Bern
privately, beseeching him to persevere.^ He remained, and
the number of those who accepte/i the Evangelical faith
under his ministry increased gradually until they appear
to have been the majority of the people.^ He confessed
himself that what hindered him most was his denunciation
of the prevailing immoralities. At the Disputation in
Bern, Farel was recognised to be one of the ablest
theologians present, and to have contributed in no small
desrree to the success of the conference. The Council
^ Herminjard, Corresjmidance, etc. ii. 22/. Farel preached his hrst
sermon at Aigle on Friday, Nov. 30th, 1526
2 Ibid. ii. 14, 15.
^ Jdid. ii. 15 n.
•» Ibid. ii. 31 n.
^ Farel seems to have asked his converts to submit to baptism ; they
were baptized in the presence of the congi egation on making a solemn and
public profession of their faith.— 76?V/. 48 /'.
THE REFORMATION IN WESTERN SWITZERLAND 69
of Bern saw in him the instrument best fitted for the
evangelisation of their French -speaking population. He
returned to Aigle under the protection of the Council, ,
who sent a herald with him to ensure that he should be
treated with all respect, and gave him besides an '* open
letter," ordering their officials to render him all assistance
everywhere within their four commanderies.^ He was
recognised to be the evangelist of the Council of Bern.
This'' did not prevent occasional disturbances, riots pro-
moted by priests and monks, who set the bells a-riuging
to drown the preacher's voice, and sometimes procured
men to beat drums at the doors of the churches in which
he was preaching. His success, however, was so great, that
when the commissioners of Bern visited their four
commanderies they found that three of them were ready
by a majority of votes to adopt the Eeformation (March
2nd, 1528). The adoption oi the Eeformation was
signified by the removal of altars and images, and by the
abolition of the Mass.
In the parishes where a majority of the people
declared for the Eeformation, the Council of Bern issued
instructions about the order of public worship and other
ecclesiastical rites. Thus we find them intunatmg to
their Governor at Aigle that they expected the people
to observe the same form of Baptism, of the Table of the
Lord and of the celebration of marriage, as was m use at
Bern (April 25th, 1528).2 The Bern Liturgy, obligatory
in all the German-speaking districts of the canton, was
not imposed on the Eomance Churches until 1552. Then,
in July (1528), the Governor is informed that —
"Mv Lords have resolved to allow to the- preachers Fare!
and Simon 'pour leur prebende' two hundred flonus o
Savoy annually, and a house with a court, and a kitchen
garden. But if they prefer to have the old revenue of e
mrish cures ... my Lords are willing. If, on the
lonLylhlj take the two hundred florins, you are to
1 Herminjard, Corrcspondance, etc. ii. 105 n.
2 7Wrf. ii. 130, 131.
70 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
sell the ecclesiastical goods, and you are to collect the
hundredths and the tithes, and out of all you are to pay
the two hundred florins annually." ^
The pastors preferred to take the place of the Eomanist
incumbents, and there is accordingly another minute sent
to the Castellan, syndic, and parishioners of Aigle, ordering
Farel to be placed in possession of the ecclesiastical posses-
sions of the parish, " seeing that it is reasonable that the
pastor should have his portion of the fruits of the sheep." ^
I The history of Aigle was repeated over and over again
in other parts of western Switzerland. In the bailiwicks
which Bern and Freiburg ruled jointly, Bern insisted on
freedom of preaching, and on the right of the people to
choose whether they would remain Eomanists or become
Protestants. Commissioners from the two cantons pre-
sided when the votes were given.
Farel was too valuable to be left as pastor of a small
district like Aigle. We find him making wide preaching
tours, always protected by Bern when protection was
possible. It was the rooted belief of the Protestants that
a public Disputation on matters of religion in presence of
the people, the speakers using the language understood by
the crowd, always resulted in spreading the Eeformation ;
and Bern continually tried to get such conferences in
towns where the authorities were Eomanist. Their first
interference in the ecclesiastical affairs of Lausanne was of
this kind. It seems that some of the priests of Lausanne
had accused Farel of being a heretic ; whereupon the
Council of Bern demanded that Farel should be heard
before the Bishop of Lausanne's tribunal, in order to prove
that he was no heretic. The claim led to a lono^ corre-
spondence. The Bishop continually refused ; while the
Council and citizens seemed inclined to grant the request.
Farel could not get a hearing before the episcopal tribunal,
but he visited the town, and on the second occasion was
permitted by the Council to preach to the people. TJiis
occurred again and again ; and the result was that the
' Herrainjard, Corrcspondance, etc. ii. 131 n. ^ Hid. ii. 137.
THE REFORMATION IN WESTERN SWITZERLAND 7l
town became Protestant and disowned the authority of the
Bishop. Bern assisted the inhabitants to drive the Bisliop
away, and to become a free municipality and Protestant.
I Gradually Farel had become the leader of an organised
band of missioners, who devoted themselves to the evant^eli-
sation of western or French-speaking Switzerland.^ Tbev
had been carefully selected — young men for the most
part well educated, of unbounded courage, willing to face
all the risks of their dangerous work, daunted by no threat
or peril, taking their lives in their hand. They were the
forerunners of the young preachers, teachers, and colpor-
teurs whom Calvin trained later in Geneva and sent forth
by the hundred to evangelise France and the Low
Countries. They were all picked men. No one was
admitted to the little band without being well warned of
the hazardous work before him, and some who were ready
to take all the risks were rejected because the leader was
not sure that they had the necessary powers of endurance.^
Tliese preachers were under the protection of the canton
of Bern, whose authorities were resolute to maintain the
freedom to preach the Word of God ; but they continually
went where the Bernese had no power to assist them ; nor
could the protection of that powerful canton aid them in
sudden emergencies when bitter Eomanist partisans, in-
furiated by the invectives with which the preachers lashed
the abuses of the Pioman religion, or wrathful at their very
presence, stirred up the mob against them. When their
correspondence and that of their op]^onents — a corie-
spondence collected and carefully edited by M.'llcrniinjard
— is read, it can be seen that they could always count on
a certain amount of sympathy from the people of the
towns and villages where they preached, but that the
^ M. Herminjard gives a list of their names— Claud, de Glantinis,
Alexandre le Bel, Thomas , Henri Tom-cellet, Jean Bosset, Antoine
Froment, Antoine Marcourt, Ejmer Beynnn, Pierre Maiinoud, Hiigues
Tnrtaz, and perhaps Jean Holard, Pierre Simonin or Synionier, Claude
Bigothier, Jean de B^ly, Jean Fathon.
2 Of. letter of Farel to Fortunat Andronicus, in Herminjard, Correspond-
avce, etc. ii. 307.
72 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
authorities were for the most part hostile. If Bern insisted
on their protection, Freiburg was as active in opposing
them, and lost no opportunity of urging the local authori-
ties to harass them in every way, to silence their preaching,
and if possible to expel them from their territories.
Such men had the defects of their qualities. Their
zeal often outran their discretion. When Farel and
Froment, the most daring and devoted of his band, were
preaching at a village in the vale of Vallingin, a priest
began to chant the Mass beside them. As the priest
elevated the Host, Froment seized it and, turning towards
the people, said, " This is not the God to adore ; He is in
the Heaven in the glory of the Father, not in the hands
of the priests as you believe, and as they teach." There
was a riot, of course, but the preachers escaped. Next
day, however, as they were passing a solitary place, they
were assailed by a crowd of men and women, stoned and
beaten with clubs, then hurried away to a neighbouring
castle whose chatelaine had instigated the attack. There
they were thrust violently into the chapel, and the crowd
tried to make Farel prostrate himself before an image of
the Blessed Virgin. He resisted, admonishing them to
adore the one God in spirit and in truth, not dumb images
without sense or power. The crowd beat him to the
effusion of blood, and the two preachers were dragged to a
vault, where they were imprisoned until rescued by the
authorities of Neuchatel.^
These preachers were all Frenchmen or French-Swiss.
They had the hot Celtic blood in their veins, and their
hearers were their kith and kin — prompt to act, impetu-
ous when their passions were stirred. Scenes occurred at
their preaching which we seldom hear of among slower
Germans, who generally waited until their authorities led.
In western Switzerland the audiences were eager to get
rid of the idolatries denounced. At Grandson, the people
rushed to the church of the Cordeliers, and tore down the
altars and images, while the crosses, altars, and images
^ Herrninjard, Correspondance, etc. ii. 270 n.
THE REFORMATION IN WESTERN SWITZERLAND 73
of the parish church were also destroyed.-^ Similar tumults
took place at Orbe ; and the authorities at Bern, who desired
to see liberty for both Protestants and Eomanists, had
occasion to rebuke the zealous preachers.
But the dangers which the missioners ran w^ere not
always of their own provoking. Sometimes a crowd of
women invaded the churches in which they preached, in-
terrupted the services with shoutings, hustled and beat the
preachers ; sometimes when they addressed the people in
the market-place the preachers and their audience were
assailed with showers of stones ; sometimes Farel and his
companions were laid wait for and maltreated.^ M. de
Watteville, sent down by the au'uhorities of Bern to report
on disturbances, wrote to the Council of Bern that the
faces of the preachers were so torn that it looked as if
they had been fighting with cats, and that on one occasion
the alarm-bell had been sounded against them, as was the
custom for a wolf-hunt.^
' No dangers daunted the missioners, and soon the whole
of the outlying districts of Bern, Neuchatel, Soleure, and
other French-speaking portions of Switzerland declared for
the Beformatibn. The cantonal authorities frequently sent
down commissioners to ascertain the wishes of the people ;
and when the majority of the inhabitauts voted for the
Evangelical religion, the church, parsonage, and stipend were
given to a Protestant pastor. Many of Farel's missioneis
were temporarily settled in these village .churches ; but they
were for the most part better fitted for pioneer work than
for a settled pastorate. In January (9-1 4th) 1532, a
synod of these Protestant pastors was held at Bern to
deliberate on some uniform ways of exercisiog their
ministry to prevent disorders arising from individual
caprice. Two hundred and thirty ministers were present,
and Bucer was brought from Strassburg to give them
guidance. His advice was greatly appreciated and
^ Herminjard, Corresxiondance, etc. ii. 365 n., 390.
2 Ihid. ii. 347, 372.
3 lUd. ii. 362 n.
74 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
followed by the delegates of the churches and the Council
of Bern. The Synod in the end issued an elaborate ordin-
ance, which included a lengthy exposition of doctrine ^
§ 3. Farel in Geneva.
^ It was after this, consolidation of the Eeformation in
Bern and its outlying provinces that Farel found himself
free to turn his attention to Geneva. He had evidently
been thinking for months about the possibility of evan-
gelising the town. He had little fear of the people them-
selves, and he wrote to Zwingli (Oct. 1st, 1531) that were
it not for the dread of Freiburg, he believed that the
Genevese would welcome the Gospel.^ The affair of the
" placards " seems to have decided him to begin his mission
in the city. When he was driven out he was far from
abandoning the enterprise. He turned to Froment, his
most trusted assistant, and sent him into Geneva.
Antoine Froment, who has the honour along with
Farel of being the Eeformer of Geneva, was born at Tries,
near Grenoble, about 1510. He was therefore, like Farel,
a native of Dauphine. Like him, also, he had gone to
Paris for his education, and had become acquainted with
Lefevre, who seems to have introduced him to Marguerite
d'Angouleme, the Queen of Navarre,^ as he received from
her a prebend in a canonry on one of her estates. How
^ The ordinance was entitled, Ordnung wie sich pfarrer und prediger &u
Statt und Land Bern, in leer und leben, halten sollen, mit tvyterem bcricht
von Christo, und den Sacramenten, beschlossen im Synodo daselbst versamlet
am 9 tag Januarij — Anno 1532. The doctrinal decisions of the Synod are
to be found in Miiller, Bekenntnisschriften der reforinierten Kirclie (Leipzig,
1903), pp. 31/.
^ Herniinjard, Correspondance, etc. ii. 364.
^ Froment married (1529) Marie Dentiere, who had been abbess of a con-
vent in Tournay, and had been expelled for her Evangelical opinions. She
was a learned lad}'', a friend of the Queen of Navarre, who sometimes
preached, according to the nun Jeanne de Jussic, and made many converts.
She wrote a piquant epistle to the Queen of Navarre, exj)osiiig the intrigues
which drove Calvin, Farel, and Coraut from Geneva. A jiortion of this
very rare Epistle is printed by Herminj;iril, Corrtspondance, etc. v. 295 jf.
FAREL IN GENEVA 75
he came to Switzerland is unknown. Once there and in-
troduced to Farel, he became his most daring and enthusi-
astic disciple, and Farel prized him above all the others.
They were Paul and Timothy. It was natural that Farel
should entrust him with the difficult and dangerous task of
preaching the Gospel in Geneva.
Farel's seizure and expulsion made it necessary to
proceed with caution. Froment entered Geneva (Nov. 3rd,
1532), and began his work by intimating by public
advertisement (placard) that he was ready to teach any
one who wished to learn to read and write the French
language, and that he would charge no fees if his pupils
were, not able to profit by his instructions. Scholars
cameJ He managed to mingle Evangelical instruction
with his lessons, — " every day one or two sermons from the
Holy Scripture," he says, — and soon made many converts,
especially among the wives of influential citizens. Towards
the end of 1532, the monks of one of the convents in
Geneva had brought to the city a Dominican, Christopher
Bocquet, to be their Advent preacher. His sermons seem
to have been largely Evangelical, and had the eftect of in-
ducing many of the citizens to attend Froment's discourses
in the hall where he kept his school.^ This provoked
threats on the part of the Eomanists, and strongly worded
sermons from the priests and Komanist oratorS. One
citizen, convicted of having spoken disrespectfully of the
Mass, was banished, and forbidden to return on pain of
death. On this the Evangelicals of the town appealed to
Bern. Their letter was promptly answered by a demand
on the part of the Council of that canton that the Evan-
geHcals must be left in peace, and if attacked pul)hcly
must be allowed to answer in as public a fashion.^ When
their letter was read in the Council of Geneva, it provoked
^ Froment, Les Ades et gestes marveilleux de la citt dc Genive (ed. of
1854 by G. Revillod), pp. 9 and 12-15.
" The authorities of Fieiliuvg in a letter to Geneva actually called till'*
Dominican monk a " Lutheran preacher " j of. their letter given in Hermin-
jard, Correspcmdancc, iii. 15/.
^ Ihid. iii. 38/.
76 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
some protests from the more ardently Eomanist members,
and the priests stirred up part of the population to riotous
proceedings, in which the lives of the Evangelicals were
threatened. The Syndics and Council had difficulty in
preventing conflicts in the streets. They published a
decree (March 30th, 1533), in which they practically pro-
claimed liberty of conscience, but forbade all insulting
expressions, all attacks on the Sacraments or on the
ecclesiastical fasts and ceremonies, and again ordered
preachers to say nothing which could not be proved from
Holy Scripture.^
The numbers of the Evangelicals* increased daily ; they
became bolder, and on the 1 0th of April they met in a garden,
under the presidency of Guerin Muete, a hosier, for the
celebration of the Lord's Supper. This l^ecame known to
the Eomanists, and there was a renewal of the threats
against the Evangelicals, which came to a head in the riot
of the 5 th of May — a riot which had important conse-
quences.^ It seems that while several citizens, known to
belong to the Evangelical party, were walking in the square
before the Cathedral of St. Peter, they were attacked by a
band of armed priests, and three of them were severely
wounded. The leader of the band, a turbulent priest named
Pierre Werly, who belonged to an old family of Freiburg,
and was a canon in the cathedral, followed by five or six
others, rushed down to the broad street Molard, with loud
shouts. Werly was armed with one of the huge Swiss
swords. He and his companions attacked the Evangelicals ;
there was a sharp, short fight ; several persons were wounded
severely, and Werly, " the captain of the priests," was slain.^
The affair made a great noise. The Romanists at once pro-
claimed Werly a martyr, and honoured him with a pompous
funeral. Freiburg insisted that all the Evangelicals who
^ The text of the decree is given in Henninjard, iii. 41 n.
2 Jeanne de Jussie, Le Levain die Calvimsme, p. 53 ; Froment, Actes et
Gestes, etc. 48-51.
^ For the affair of Werly, see the letter of the Evangelicals of Geneva to
the Council of Bern, given in Herminjard, Correspondance, etc., and the
notes of the editor (iii. 46./7'.).
FAREL IN GENEVA 77
happened to be in the Molard should be arrested ; and it
was said that preparations were being made for a massacre
of all the followers of the Reformation. In their extremity
they again appealed to Bern, whose authorities again inter-
fered for their protection.
During these troublesome times the position of the
Council of Geneva was one of great difficulty. The Prince-
Bishop of Geneva, Pierre de la Baume, was still nominally
sovereign, secular as well as ecclesiastical ruler. His
secular powers had been greatly curtailed, how much it is
difficult to say, but certainly to the extent that the criminal
administration of the city and the territory subject to it was
in the hands of the Council and Syndics. Freiburg, one of
the two protecting cantons, insisted that all the ecclesi-
astical authority was still in the hands of the Bishop, to be
administered in his absence by his vicar.^ The Councils,
although they had passed decrees (June 30th, 1532, and
March 30th, 1533) which had distinctly to do with ecclesi-
astical matters, acknowledged for the most part that the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction did not belong to them. But the
whole of the ^inhabitants were not contented witli this
diminution of the episcopal authority. Turbulent priests
and the yet more violent canon s,^ the great body of monks
and nuns, wished, and intrigued for the- restoration of the
rule of the Bishop and of the House of vSavoy. The begin-
nings of a movement for lieformation had increased the
difficulties of the Council ; it brought a third party into
the town. The Evangelicals were all strongly opposed to
the rule of the Bishop and Savoy, and they were fast grow-
ing in strength ; a powerful minority of Eoman Catholics
* After the defeat of his party by the combined etfort's of Freiburg and
Bern, the Bishop had quitted Geneva on August 1st, 1527 ; he returned there
on July 1st, 1533, but left again, after a fortnight's residence (July 14th,
1533), disgusted, he said, at an act of iconoclasni.
^ The priests of Geneva were notoriously turbutent. We read of at least
five riots which they headed. The canons were worse. Pierre Wcrly had
attempted the assassination of Farel on October 3rd, 1532 (Jeanne de Jussie,
Le Levaindu Calvinisme, p. 50) ; he had taken an active part in tlie riots
caused by the placards in 1532.
78 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
were no less strongly in favour of a return to the old con-
dition. The majority of the Eoman Catholic citizens,
opposed to the Bishop as a secular ruler, had no desire
for the triumph of the Eeformation. As time went on, it
was seen that these moderate Eomanists had to choose
between a return of the old disorderly rule of the Bishop,
or to acquiesce in the ecclesiastical as well as the secular
superiority of the Council, pressed by the Protestant canton
of Bern. The Savoyard party evidently beheved that their
hatred of the Eeformation would be stronger than their
dislike to the Savoyard and episcopal rule — a mistaken
belief, as events were to show.
The policy of Bern, wherever its influence prevailed in
western Switzerland, was exerted to secure toleration for all
Evangelicals, and to procure, if possible, a public discussion
on matters of religion between the Eomanists and leading
Eeformers. They pressed this over and over again on their
allies of Geneva. As early as April 1533, they had in-
sisted that a monk who had offered to refute Farel should
be kept to his word, and that the Council of Geneva should
arrange for a Public Disputation.^ Towards the close of
the year an event occurred which gave them a pretext for
decisive interference.
Guy Furbiti, a renowned Eoman Catholic preacher, a
learned theologian, a doctor of the Sorbonne, had been
brought to Geneva to be Advent preacher. He used the
occasion to denounce vigorously the doctrines of the Evan-
gelicals, supporting his statements, as he afterwards confessed,
not from Scripture, but from the Decretals and from the
writings of Thomas Aquinas. He ended his sermon (Dec.
2nd) with the words: "Where are those fine preachers of
the fireside, who say the opposite ? If they showed them-
selves here one could speak to them. Ha ! ha ! they are
well to hide themselves in corners to deceive poor women
and others who know nothing."
After the sermon, either in church or in the square
before the cathedral, Froment cried to the crowd, " Hear
^ Herminjaid, Corrcsjiondance, etc. iii. 38.
FAREL IN GENEVA 79
me ! I am ready to give my life, and my body to be
burned, fco maintain that what that man has said is nothing
but falsehood and the words of Antichrist." There was a
great commotion. Some shouted, " To the fire with him !
to the fire ! " and tried to seize him. The chronicler nun,
Jeanne de Jussie, proud of her sex, relates that " les femmes
comme enragees sortirent apres, de grande furie, luy jettant
force pierres." ^ He escaped from them. But Alexandre
Canus was banished, and forbidden to return under pain of
death ; and Froment was hunted from house to house, until
he found a hiding-place in a hay-loft. Furbiti had per-
mitted himself to attack with strong invectives the authori-
ties of Bern, and the Evangelicals of Geneva in their appeal
for protection sent extracts from the sermons.^ Bern had
at last the opportunity for which its Council had long
waited.
They wrote a dignified letter (Dec. 17th, 1533) to the
Council of Geneva, in which they complained that the
Genevese, their allies, had hitherto paid little attention to
their requests for a favourable treatment of the Evangelicals ;
that they had expelled from the town " nostre serviteur
maistre Guillanime Earel " ; not content with that, they had
recently misused their " servants " Froment and Alexandre
for protesting against the sermons of a Jacobin monk
(Furbiti) who " preached only lies, errors, and blasphemies
against God, the faith, and ourselves, wounding our honour,
calling us Jews, Turks, and dogs"; that the banishment
of Alexandre and the hunting of Froment touched them
(the Council of Bern), and that they would not suffer it.
^ Le Levain du Cahinisme, pp. 74, 75, 247 (where Canus is called Alexander
de Molendino). Froment, who had been compelled to quit Geneva, had re-
turned to the town along with Alexandre Canus immediately after the
departure of the Bishop on the 14th of July 1533.
2 Furbiti permitted himself touse strong language. Even the Romanist
chronicler, the nun Jeanne de Jussie, records that Furbiti "touched to the
quick the Lutheran dogs," and said that "all those who belonged to that
cursed sect were licentious, gluttons, lascivious, ambitious, homicides, and
bandits, who loved nothing but sensuality, and lived as the brutes, reveren-
cing neither God nor their superiors" {Le Levain du Calvinisme, p. 79).
80 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
They demanded the immediate arrest of the " caffard " ^
(Furbiti) ; and they said they were about to send an
embassy to Geneva to vindicate publicly the honour of God
and their own.^
As the Council of Bern meant to enforce a Public
Disputation, they sent Farel to Geneva. He reached the
city on the evening of December 20 th.
The letter was read to the Council of Geneva upon Dec.
21st, and they at once gave orders to the vicar to prevent
Furbiti leaving the town. But the vicar, who had resolved
to try his strength against Bern, refused, and actually
published two mandates (Dec. 31st, 1533, and Jan. 1st,
1534) denouncing the Genevese Syndics, forbidding any of
the citizens to read the Holy Scriptures, and ordering all
copies of translations of the Bible, whether in German or in
French, to be seized and burnt.^ The dispute between
Syndics and vicar was signalised by riots promoted by the
extreme Eomanist party. The Council, anxious not to pro-
ceed to extremities, contented themselves with placing a
guard to watch Furbiti ; and the monk was attended con-
tinually, even when he went to and from the church, by a
guard of three halberdiers.
The Bernese embassy arrived on the 4th of January,
and had prolonged audience of the Council of Geneva on
the 5 th and 7 th. They insisted on a fair treatment for
the Evangelical party, which meant freedom of conscience
and the right of public worship, and they demanded that
Furbiti should be compelled to justify his charges against
the Evangelicals in the presence of learned men who could
speak for the Council of Bern. The Genevan authorities
had no wish to break irrevocably with their Bishop, nor to
coerce the ecclesiastical authorities ; they pleaded that
Furbiti was not under their jurisdiction, and they referred
^ Caffard need not be taken to mean hypocrite : it was commonly used to
denote a mendicant friar.
2 The letter is given in Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. iii. 119/.
2 The MS. clironicle of Michel Roset is the source for the statement about
the order to burn translations of the Scripture.
FAREL IN GENEVA 81
the Bernese deputies to tlie Bishop or his vicar. " We
have been ordered to apply to you," said the deputies from
Bern. " Your answer makes us see that you seek delay ,
and that you are not treating us fairly ; that you think little
of the honour of the Council of Bern. Here is the treaty
of alliance (they produced the document), and we are about
to tear off the seals." This was the formal way among the
Swiss of cancelling a treaty. The Councillors of Geneva
then proposed that they should compel the monk to
appear before them and the deputies of Bern, wliea
explanations might be demanded from him. The deputies
accepted the offer, but on condition that there should be
a conference between the monk (Furbiti) and theologians
sent from Bern (Farel and Viret). Next day Furbiti was
taken from the episcopal palace and placed in the town's
prison (Jan. 8th), and on the morrow (Jan. 9th) he was
brought before the Council. There he refused to plead
before secular judges. The Council of Geneva tried in vain
to induce the vicar to nominate an ecclesiastical delegate
who was to sit in the Council and be present at the confer-
ence. Their negotiations wdth the vicar, carried on for
some days, were in vain. Then they attempted to induce
the Bernese to depart from their conditions. The Council
of Bern was immovable. It insisted on the immediate
payment by the Genevese of the debt due to Bern for the
war of deliverance and for the punishment of Furbiti (Jan.
25th, 1534). Driven to the wall, the Council of Geneva
resolved to override the ecclesiastical authority of the
Bishop and his vicar. Furbiti was compelled to appear
before the Council and the deputies of Bern, and to answer
to Farel and Viret on Jan. 27th and Feb. 3rd (1534).
On the afternoon of the latter day the partisans of the
Bishop got up another riot, in which one of them poniarded
an Evangelical, Nicolas Bergier. Tliis riot seems to have
exhausted the patience of the peaceable' citizens of Geneva,
whether Eomanists or Evangelicals. A band of about five
liundred assembled armed before the Town Hall, informed
the Council that they would no longer tolerate riots caused
6^*
82 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
by turbulent priests, and that they were ready to support
civic authority and put down lawlessness with a strong
hand. The Council thereupon acted energetically. That
night the murderer, Claude Pennet, who had hid himself in
the belfry of the cathedral, was dragged from his place of
concealment, tried next day, and hanged on the day fol-
lowing (Feb. 5th). The houses of the principal rioters
were searched, and letters discovered proving a plot
to seize the town and deliver it into the hands of the
Bishop. Pierre de la Baume had gone the length of
nominating a member of the Council of Freiburg, M.
Pavillard, to act as his deputy in secular affairs, and ordering
him to massacre the Evangelicals within the city.
When the excitement had somewhat died down, the
deputies of Bern pressed for a renewal of the proceedings
against Furbiti. The monk was again brought before the
Council, and confronted by Farel and Viret. He was
forced to confess that he could not prove his assertions
from the Holy Scriptures, but had based them on the
Decretals and the writings of Thomas Aquinas, admitting
that he had transgressed the regulations of the Council of
Geneva. He promised that, if allowed to preach on the
following Sunday (Feb. 15th), he would make public re-
paration to the Council of Bern. When Sunday came he
refused to keep his promise, and was sent back to prison.^
Meanwhile the Evangelical community in Geneva was
growing, and taking organised form. One of the most
prominent of the Genevan Evangelicals, Jean Baudichon de
la Maisonneuve^ prepared a hall by removing a partition
between two rooms in his magnificent house, situated in
that part of the city which was the cradle of the Eeforma-
^ Furbiti was released in April 1536 at the request of Francis i. of France
He was exchanged for Antoine Saunier, a Swiss Evangelical in prison in
France. Such exchanges were not uncommon between the Protestant
cantons and France. — Herniinjard, Correspondance, etc. iii. 396/.
A full account of the conferences between Farel and Furbiti is given in
Lettres certaincs (Vav.cuns grandz troubles ct tuwultcs nuz a Geneve,
avec la disputation f aide Van 1534, ^Xq. (Basel, 158^). The booklet is very
rare.
FAREL IN GENEVA 83
tion in Geneva. There Farel, Viret, and Froment preached
to three or four hundred persons; and there the first
baptism according to the Eeformed rite was celebrated in
Geneva (Feb. 22nd, 1533). The audiences soon increased
beyond the capacity of the hall, and the Evangelicals, pro-
tected by the presence of the Bernese deputies, took posses-
sion of the large audience hall or church of the Convent
of the Cordeliers in the same street (March 1st). The
deputies from Bern frequently asked the Council of Geneva
to grant the use of one of the churches of the town for the
Evangelicals, but were continually answered that the
Council had not the power, but that they would not object
if the Evangelicals found a suitable place. This indirect
authorisation enabled them to meet in the convent church,
whicli held between four and five thousand people, and
which was frequently filled. Thus the little band increased.
Farel preached for the first time in St. Peter's on the 8tli
of August 1535. Services were held in other houses
also.^
The Bishop of Geneva, foiled in his attempt to regain
possession of the town by well-planned riots, united him-
self with the ^Duke of Savoy to conquer the city by force
of arms. Their combined forces advanced against Geneva ;
they overran the country, seized and pillaged the country
houses of the citizens, and subjected the town itself to a
^ Adjoining the house of Baudiehon, with one building between them, wa.s
a large mansion occupied by the Seigneur de Thorens, a strong partisan of
the Reformation. He was a Savoyard, expelled from his country because of
his religious principles. He acquired citizenship in Bern. The Bernese, on
the eve of their embassy, which reached Geneva on Jan. 4th, had bought this
house, and placed M. de Thorens therein, intending it to be a place where
the Evangelicals could meet in safety under the protection of Bern. It is prob-
able that in time of special danger the Evangelicals met there for public
worship. When the Council of Freiburg objected to Farel's preaching, the
Council of Geneva replied that the services were held in the house of the
deputies of Bern. Cf. Herminjai-d, Corrcsiyondoncc, etc. ix. 459/., 459/. ;
Jeanne de Jussie, Le Levain du Calvinisme, pp. 91,106, 107 (where the poor
nun describes the various ceremonies of the Reformed cult with all the venom
and coarseness. of sixteenth century Romanism) ; Baum, Frocesde Baudiehon
de la Maisoniieuve acciis6 d'h^resie a Lyon, 1534 (Geneva, 1873), pp. 110,
111 ; Doumergue, Jean Calvin, it. 126/., iii. 196-98.
84 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
close investment. The war was a grievous matter for the
city, but it furthered the Eeformation. The Bishop had
leagued himself with the old enemy of Geneva ; the priests,
the monks, the nuns were eager for his success ; he com-
pelled patriotic Eoman Catholics to choose between their
religion and their country. It was also a means of dis-
playing the heroism of the Protestant pastors. Farel and
Froment were high-spirited Frenchmen, who scoffed at
any danger lying in the path of duty. They had braved a
thousand perils in their missionary work. Viret was not
less courageous. The three worked on the fortifications with
the citizens ; they shared the watches of the defenders ;
they encouraged the citizens by word and deed. The
Genevese were prepared for any sacrifices to preserve their
liberties. Four faubourgs, which formed a second town
almost as large. as the first, were ordered to be demolished
to strengthen the defence. The city was reduced to great
straits, and the citizens of Bern seemed to be deaf to
their cries for help.
Bern was doing its best by embassies to assist them ;
but it dared not attack the Pays de Vaud when Freiburg,
angry at the process of the Eeformation, threatened a
counter attack. After the siege was raised, the strongholds
in the surrounding country remained in the possession of
the enemy, and the people belonging to Geneva were
liable to be pillaged and maltreated. .
Within the city the number of Evangelicals increased
week by week. Then came a sensational event whicli
brought about the ruin of the Eoman Catholic party. A
woman, Antoina Yax, cook in the house of Claude Bernard,
with whom the three pastors dwelt, attempted to poison
Viret, Farel, and Froment.^ The confession of the prisonei',
^ The poison was placed in some spinach soup, and the popular story was
that Farel escaped because he did not like the food ; that Froment ha<l
seated himself at table to take his share, when news was brought to him
that his wife and children had arrived at Geneva — he rose from the table at
once to go to meet them, and left the soup untasted. Poor Viret was the
only one who took his share, and became very ill immediately afterwards.
The prisoner's confession, lately exhumed from the Geneva archives, tells
FAREL IN GENEVA 85
combined with other circumstances, created the impression
among the members of Council and the people of Geneva
that the priests of the town had instigated the attempt, and
a strong feeling in favour of the Protestant pastors swept
over the city. The Council at once provided lodging for
Viret and Farel in the Convent of the Cordeliers. Wben
the guardian of that convent asked leave to hold public
discussions on religious questions in the great church belong-
ing to the convent, it was at once granted.
The Council itself made arrangements for the public
Disputation. Five Theses ^vangdiques were drafted by the
Protestant pastors, and the Council invited discussion upon
Sthem from ail and sundry.^ Invitations were sent ta the
canons of the cathedral, and to all the priests and monks
of Oeneva ; safe-conducts were promised to all foreign
theologians who desired to take part ; ^ a special attempt
was made to induce a renowned Paris Eoman Catholic
champion, Pierre Cornu, a theologian trained at the
Sorbonne, who happened to be at Grenoble, to defend the
Eomanist position by attacking the Theses. The Theses
themselves were posted up in Geneva as early as the 1st of
May (1535), and copies were sent to all the priests and
convents within the territories of the Genevans.^
The Disputation was fixed to open on the 30th of May.
The Council nominated eight commissioners, half of whom
were Eoman Catholics, to maintain order, and four secre-
taries to keep minutes of the proceedings.'* Eftbrts were
made to induce Eoman Catholic theologians of repute for
their learning to attend and attack the Theses. But the
Bishop of Geneva had forbidden the Disputation, and the
another tale. The woman said that she stuffed a small bone with the
poison, and placed it in Viret's bowl ; but was afraid to do the same to
Farel's because his soup was too clear. . Cf. extracts quoted in Doumergue's
Jean Calvin, etc. ii. 133, 134 n..
^ The Theses are given in Ruchat, Histo'irc de la Rt^formaiion de la Suisse^
iii. 357.
2 Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. iii. 294, 295 n.
2 Le Levdin du Calcinisme, p. 118.
* Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. iii. 22 in.
86 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
Council were unable to prevail on any stranger to appear.
When the opening day arrived, and the Council, commis-
sioners, and secretaries were solemnly seated in their places
in the great hall of the convent, no Eomanist defender of
the faith appeared to impugn the Evangelical Theses. Farel
and Viret nevertheless expounded and defended. The Dis-
putation continued at intervals during four weeks, till the
24th of June, Eomanist champions accepted the Kefor-
mers' challenge — Jean Chapuis, prior of the Dominican
convent at Plainpalais, near Geneva, and Jean Cachi,
confessor to the Sisters of St. Clara in the city. But they
were no match for men like Farel. Chapuis himself
apologised for the absence of the Genevan priests and
monks, by saying that even in his convent there was a lack
of learned men. The weakness of the Eomanist defence
made a great impression on the people of Geneva. They
went about saying to each other, " If all Christian princes
permitted a free discussion Uke our MM. of Geneva, the
affair would soon be settled without burnings, or slaughter,
or murders ; but the Pope and his followers, the cardinals
and the bishops and the priests, know well that if free
discussion is permitted all is lost for them. So all these
powers forbid any discussion or conversation save by fire
and by sword." They knew that all throughout Eomance
Switzerland the Eeformers, whether in a minority or in a
majority, were eager for a public discussion.
When the Disputation was ended, Farel urged the
Council to declare themselves on the side of the Eeforma-
tion ; but they hesitated until popular tumults forced their
hand. On July 23rd, Farel preached in the Church of
the Madeleine. The Council made mild remonstrances.
Then he preached in the Church of St. Gervais. Lastly,
on the 8 th of August, the people forced him to preach in
the Cathedral, St. Peter's (Aug. 8th). In the afternoon
the priests were at vespers as usual. As they chanted the
Psalm —
"Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of men's Land?.
FAREL IN GENEVA 87
They have mouths, but they speak not ;
Eyes have they, but they see not ;
They have, ears, but they hear not ;
Noses have they, but they smell not ;
They have hands, but they handle not ;
Feet have they, but they walk not ;
Neither speak they through their throat,"
someone in the throng shouted, " You curse, as you chant,
all who make graven images and trust in them. Why. do
you let them remain here ? " It was the signal for a
tumult. The crowd rushed to throw to the ground and
break in pieces the statues of the saints ; and the children
pushing among the crowd picked up the fragments, and
rushing to the doors, said, " We have the gods of the priests,
would you like some ? " ^ Next day the riots were renewed
in the parish and convent churches, and the images of the
saints were defaced or destroyed.
The Council met on the 9 th, and summoned Farel
before them. The minutes state that he made an oratio
magna, ending with the declaration that he and his fellow-
preachers were willing to submit to death if it could be
shown that ^they taught anything contrary to the Holy
Scriptures. Then, falling on his knees, he poured forth one
of those wonderful prayers which more than anything else
exhibited the exalted enthusiasm of the great missionary.
The religious question was discussed next day in the Council
of the Two Hundred, when it was resolved to abolish the
Mass provisionally, to summon the monks before the Council,
and to ask them to give their reasons for maintaining the Mass
and the worship of the saints. The two Councils resolved
to inform the people of Bern about what they had done.^
It is evident that the two Councils had been hurried
by the iconoclastic zeal of the people along a path they
* Froment, Actes et gestes, etc. pp. 144-146 : "Nous avons les dieux des
Prebstres, en voulles vous ? et les iectoynt apres'cielx " (p. 145).
- The minute is given in Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. iii. 424 ; and
the letter of "the two Councils written for the information of the Councils of
Bern at p. 332.
88 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
had meant to tread in a much more leisurely fashion. The
political position was full of uncertainties. Their enemies
were still in the field against them. Bern seemed to be.
unable to assist them. They were ready to welcome the
intervention of France. It was the fear of increasing their
external troubles rather than any zeal for the Eoman
Catholic faith that had prevented the Council from espous-
ing the Reformation immediately after the public Disputa-
tion. " If we abolish the Mass, image worship, and every-
thing popish, for one enemy we have now we are sure to
have an hundred," was their thought.^
The official representatives of the Eoman Catholic
religion did not appear to advantage at this crisis of their
fate. They were in no haste to defend their worship
before the Council. When they at last appeared (Nov.
29th, 1535), the monks in the forenoon and the secular
clergy in the afternoon, there was a careless indifference in
their answers. The Council seem to have referred them to
Farel's summary of the matters discussed in the public
Disputation which began on the 30th of May, and to have
asked them what they had to say against its conclusions
and in favour of the Mass and of the adoration of the
saints.^ The monks one after another (twelve of them
appeared before the Council) answered monotonously that
they were unlearned people, who lived as they had been
taught by their fathers, and did not inquire further. The
secular clergy, by their spokesman Roletus de Pane, said
that they had nothing to do with the Disputation and w^hat
had been said there ; that they had no desire to listen to
more addresses from Farel ; and that they meant to live as
their predecessors.^ This was the end. The two deputa-
^ Froment, Actes et gestes, etc. pp. 142-144.
^ The fullest contemporary account of these matters is to bs found in Un
opuscule inidit de Farcl ; Lc Resume des acles dc la Dispute de Rive de 1535,
published in the 22nd vol. of the Memoires et Documents piubliees par la SodHe
d'Histoire et Archceologie de Geneve. It has been reprinted separately.
' The words used by the spokesman of the secular clergy, among whom
were the canons of the cathedral, were : "stta nan esse sustinere taliu, cum
nee sint sujjicientes nee sciant."
FAREL IN GENEVA 89
tions of monks and seculars were informed by the Council
that they must cease saying Mass until further orders were
given. The Keformation was legally established in Geneva,
and the city stood forth with Bern as altogether Protestant.^
The dark clouds on the political horizon were rising.
France see"med about to interfere in favour of Geneva, and
the fear of France in possession of the "gate of western
Switzerland" was stronger than reluctance to permit
Geneva to become a Protestant city. The Council of
Freiburg promised to allow the Bernese army to march
through their territory. Bern renounced its alliance with
Savoy on November 29th, 1535. War was declared on
January 16th. The army of Bern left its territories,
gathering reinforcements as it went; for towns like
Neuville, Neuchatel, Lausanne, Payerne — oppressed Pro-
testant communities in Romance Switzerland — felt that the
hour of their liberation was at hand, and their armed
burghers were eager to strike one good stroke at their
oppressors under the leadership of the proud republic.
There was little fighting. The greater part of the Pays de
Vaud was conquered without striking a blow, and the army
of the Duke^f Savoy and the Bishop of Geneva was dis-
persed without a battle. A few sieges were needed to
complete the victory. The great republic, after its fashion,
had waited till the opportune moment, and then struck
once and for all. Its decisive victory brought deliverance
not only to Geneva, but to Lausanne and many other Pro-
testant municipalities in Romance Switzerland (Aug. 7 th,
1536). The democracy of Geneva was served heir to the
seignorial rights of the Bishop, and to the sovereign, riglits
of the Duke of Savoy over city and lands. Geneva became
an independent republic imder the protectomte of Bern, and
to some extent dependent on that canton.
In the month of December 1535, the Syndics and
Council of Geneva had adopted the legend on the coat of
arms of the town. Post tenehras lux—^ device which became
1 The minute of Council is quoted in Doumergue, Jean Calvin, etc. li.
147, 148.
90 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
very famous, and appeared on its coinage. The resolution
of the Council of the Two Hundred to abolish the Mass
and saint worship was officially confirmed by the citizens
assembled, " as was the custom, by sound of bell and of
trumpet" (May 21st, 1536).
Geneva had gained much. It had won political inde-
pendence, for which it had been fighting for thirty years,
modified by its relations to Bern,^ but greater than it had
ever before enjoyed. The Eeformed religion had been
established, although the fact remained that the Komanist
partisans had still a good deal of hidden strength. But
much was still to be done to make the town the citadel of
the Eeformation which it was to become. Its past history
had demoralised its people. The rule of dissolute bishops
and the example of a turbulent and immoral clergy had
poisoned the morals of the city.^ The liberty won might
easily degenerate into licence, and ominous signs were not
lacking that this was about to take place. " It is impos-
sible to deny," says Kampschulte, the Koman Catholic
biographer of Calvin, " that disorder and demoralisation had
become threatening in Geneva ; it would have been almost
a miracle had it not been so." Farel did what he could.
He founded schools. He organised the hospitals. He
strove to kindle moral life in the people of his adopted
city. But his talents and his character fitted him much
more for pioneer work than for the task which now lay
before him.
^ For these relations, cf. Durrant, Les Relations politiques de Geneve avec
Berne et les Suisses, de 1536 a 1564 (1894).
- The devout Romanist, Soeur Jeanne de Jussie, testifies, with mediaeval
frankness, to the dissolute lives of the Romish clergy : '^ U est bien vray que
les Prelats ct gens d'^glise pour ce temps ne gardoient pas Men leurs vceus et
estat, mais gaudissoient dissolument des Mens de VEglise tenant femmes en
lubricity et adultergy et quasi tout le peuple estoit infect de cest abominable et
detestable peche : dont est a scavoir que les pechez du monde abondoient en toutes
sorles de gens, qui incitoient I'ire de Dieu ay mettre sa punition divine"
{Le Levain dii, Calvinisme, p. 35 ; cf. minutes of the Coiincil of Geneva at
p. 241). Even the nuns of Geneva, with the exception of the nuns of St.
Clara, to whom Jeanne de Jussie belonged, were notorious for their conduct ;
cf. Ilerminjard, Corresjwndance, etc. v. 349 n.
FAREL IN GENEVA 91
Farel was a chivalrous Frenchman, born among the
mountains of Dauphine, whose courage, amountinc' to reck-
less daring, won for him the passionate admiration of
soldiers like Wildermuth,^ and made him volunteer to lead
any forlorn hope however desperate. He was sympathetic
to soft-heartedness, yet utterly unable to restrain- his tonc^ue ;
in danger of his life one week because of his violent lan-
guage, and the next almost adored, by those who would
have slain him, for the reckless way in which he nursed the
sick and dying during a visitation of the plague. He was
the brilliant partisan leader, seeing only what lay before
his eyes ; incapable of self-restraint ; a learned theologian,
yet careless in his expression of doctrine, and continually
liable to misapprehension. No one was better fitted to
attack the enemy's strongholds, few less able to hold them
when once possessed. He saw, without the faintest trace
of jealousy — the man was too noble — others building on
the foundations he had laid. It is almost pathetic to see
that none of the Eomance Swiss churches whose Apostle he
had been, cared to retain him as their permanent leader.
In the closing years of his life he went back to his beloved
France, and ended as he had begun, a pioneer evangelist in
Lyons, Metz, and elsewhere, — a leader of forlorn hopes,
carrying within him a perpetual spring and the effervescing
recklessness of youth. He had early seen that the pioneer
life which he led was best lived without wife or children,
and he remained unmarried until his sixty-ninth year.
Then he met with a poor widow who had lost husband and
property for religion's sake in Eouen, and had barely escaped
with life. He married her because in no other way could
he find for her a home and protection.
Geneva needed a man of altogether different mould of
character to do the work that was now necessary. When
Farel's anxieties and vexations were at their height, he
^ Cf. Wildermuth's letter to the Council of the Two Hundred in
Bern, telling that Farel was in prison at Payerne : "Would that I had
twenty Bernese with me, and with the help of God we would not have per
mitted what has happened " (Herminjard, Corrcspondancc, etc. ii. 344).
92 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
learned almost by accident that a distinguished young
French scholar, journeying from Ferrara to Basel, driven
out of his direct course by war, had arrived in Geneva, and
was staying for a night in the town. This was Calvin.
§ 4. Calvin : Youth and Education,
Jean Cauvin (latinised into Calvinus) was born at
Noyon in Picardy on the 10th of July 1509. He was
the second son in a family of four sons and two daughters.
His father, Gerard Cauvin, was a highly esteemed lawyer,
the confidential legal adviser of the nobility and higher
clergy of the district. His mother, Jeanne La France, a
very beautiful woman, was noted for her devout piety and
her motherly affection. Calvin, who says little about his
childhood, relates how he was once taken by his mother on
the festival of St. Anna to see a relic of the saint preserved
in the Abbey of Ourscamp, near Noyon, and that he re-
members kissing " part of the body of St. Anna, the mother
of the Virgin Mary." ^
The Cauvins belonged to vv^hat we should call the upper
middle class in social standing, and the young Jean entered
the house of the noble family of de Montmor to share the
! education of the children, his father paying for all his
^expenses. The young de Montmors were sent to College
in Paris, and Jean Cauvin, then fourteen years of age, went
with them. This early social training never left Calvin,
who was always the reserved, polished French gentleman
— a striking contrast to his great predecessor Luther.
Calvin was a Picard, and the characteristics of the
province were seen in its greatest son. The Picards were
always independent, frequently strongly anti-clerical, com-
bining in a singular way fervent enthusiasm and a cold
tenacity of purpose. No province in France had produced
so many sympathisers with Wiclif and Hus, and " Picards "
was a term met with as frequently on the books of
Inquisitors as " Wiclifites," " Hussites," or " Waldeuses " —
^ DoLimergue, Jean Calvin, etc. i. 42.
CALVIN : YOUTH AND EDUCATION 93
all the names denoting dissenters from the mediaeval
Church who accepted all the articles of the Apostles' Creed
but were strongly anti-clerical. These " brethren " lingered
in all the countries of Western Europe until the sixteenth
century, and their influence made itself felt in the
beginnings of the stirrings for reform.
Gerard Cauvin had early seen that his second son,
Jean, was de hon esprit, dJune 'promote naturelle a cojicevoir,
et inventif en Vestude des lettres Jmmaines/- and this induced
him to give the boy as good an education as he could, and
to destine him for the study of theology. His legal con-
nection with the higher clergy of Noyon enabled him, in
the fashion of the day, to procure for his son more than
one benefice. The boy was tonsured, a portion of the
revenue was used to pay for a curate who did the work,
and the rest went to provide for the lad's education.
Young Calvin went with the three sons of tlie de
■ Montmor family to the College de la Marche in Paris. It
was not a famous one, but when Calvin studied there in
the lowest class he had as his professor Mathurin Cordier,
the ablest teacher of his generation.^ His aim was to give
his pupils a thorough knowledge of the French and Latin
languages — a foundation on which they might afterwards
build for themselves. He had a singularly sweet disposi-
tion, and a very open mind. He was brought to know the
Gospel by Eobert Estienne, and. in 1536 his name was
inscribed, along with those of Courat- and Clement Marot,
on the list of the principal heretics in Paris. Calvin was
not permitted to remain long imder this esteemed teacher.
The atmosphere was probably judged to be too liberal for
one who was destined to study theology. He was trans-
ferred to the more celebrated College de Montaigu. Calvin
was again fortunate in his principal teachers. He became
^ Doumergue, Jean Calvin, etc. i. 35.
^ Cordier, Corderius, Cordery, was a well-kn6wn name in Scottisli parisli
schools a century ago, wliere his exercises were used in almost every Latin
class. He became a convert of the Reformed faith, and did his best to spread
Evangelical doctrines by means of the sentences to be turned into Latin. He
followed his great pupil to Geneva, and died there in liis eighty-eighth year.
94 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
the pupil of Noel Beda and of Pierre Tempete, who taught
him the art of formal disputation.
Calvin had come to Paris in his fourteenth year, and
left it when he was nineteen — the years when a lad
becomes a man, and his character is definitely formed. If
we are to judge by his own future references, no one had
more formative influence over him than Mathurin Cordier
— short as had been the period of their - familiar inter-
course. Calvin had shown a singularly acute mind, and
proved himself to be a scholar who invariably surpassed
his fellow students. He was always surrounded by
attached friends — the three brothers de Montmor, the
younger members of the famous family of Cop, and many
others. These student friends were devoted to him all his
life. Many of them settled with him at Geneva.
Calvin left the College de Montaigu in 1528. Some-
time during the same year another celebrated pupil entered
it. This was Ignatius Loyola. Whether the two great
leaders attended College together, whether they ever met,
it is impossible to say — the dates are not precise enough.
"Perhaps they crossed each other in some street of
Mount Sainte-Genevieve : the young Frenchman of eighteen
on horseback as usual, and the Spaniard of six and thirty
on foot, his purse furnished with some pieces of gold he
owed to charity, shoving before him an ass burdened with
his books, and carrying in his pocket a manuscript, entitled
Exercitia Spirit2ialia." ^
Calvin left Paris because his father had now resolved
that his son should be a lawyer and not a theologian.
Gerard Cauvin had quarrelled with the ecclesiastics of
Noyon, and had even been excommunicated. He refused
to render his accounts in two executry cases, and had
remained obstinate. Why he was so, it is impossible to
say. His children had no difficulty in arranging matters
after his death. The quarrel ended the hopes of the father
to provide well for his son in the Church, and he ordered
* Douniergue, Jean Calvin, etc. i. 126.
CALVIN : YOUTH AND EDUCATION 95
him to quit Paris for the great law school at Orleans. It
is by no means improbable that the father's decision was
very welcome to the son. Beze tells us that Calvin had
already got some idea of the true religion, had ])egun to
study the Holy Scriptures, and to separate himself from
the ceremonies of the Church;^ — perhaps his" friendship
with Pierre Eobert Olivetan, a relation, a native of Noyon,
and the translator of the Bible into French, had brought
this about. The young man went to Orleans in the early
part of 1528 and remained there for a year, then went on
to Bourges, in order to attend the lectures of the famous
publicist, Andre Alciat, who was destined to be as great a
reformer of the study of law as Calvin was of the study
of theology. In Orleans with its Humanism, and in
Bourges with its incipient Protestantism, Calvin was placed
inTlTposition favourable for the growth of ideas wliich had
already taken root in his mind. At Bourges he studied
Greek under Wolmar, a Lutheran in all but the name, and
dedicated to him long afterwards his Commentary on the
Second Epistle to the Corinthians. He seems to have lived
in the house of Wolmar ; another inmate was Theodore
de Beze, the future' leader of the Protestants of France,
then a boy of twelve.
The death of his father (May 26th, 1531) left Calvin
his own master. He had obeyed the paternal wishes when
he studied for the Church in Paris ; he had obediently
transferred himself to the study of law ; he now resolved
to follow the bent of his own mind, and, dedicating himself
to study, to become a man of letters. He returned to
Paris and entered the College Fortet, meaning to attend
the lectures of the Humanist professors whom Francis I.,
under the guidance of Bude and Cop, was attracting to his
capital. These " royal lecturers " and their courses of
instruction were looked on with great suspicion by the
Sorbonne, and Calvin's conduct in placing himself under
their instruction showed that he had already emancipated
Jaimself from that strict devotion to the " superstitions of
^ Corpus R''fo'nrcUoi'um, xlix. p. 121.
96 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
the Papacy " to which he tells us that he was obstinately
attached in his boyhood. He soon became more than the
pupil of Bude, Cop, and other Humanists. He was a friend,
admitted within the family circle. He studied Greek with
Pierre Danes and Hebrew under Vatable. In due time
(April 1532), when barely twenty-three years of age, he
published at his own expense his first book, a learned
commentary on the two books of Seneca's De dementia.
The book is usually referred to as an example of
precocious erudition. The author shows that he knew as
minutely as extensively the whole round of classical
literature accessible to his times. He quotes, and that
aptly, from fifty- five separate Latin authors — from thirty-
three separate works of Cicero, from all the works of
Horace and Ovid, from five comedies of Terence, and
from all the works of Virgil. He quotes from twenty-two
separate Greek authors — from five or six of the principal
writings of Aristotle, and from four of the writings of
Plato and of Plutarch. Calvin does not quote Plautus, but
his use of the phrase remoram facere makes it likely that
he was well acquainted with that writer also.^ The future
theologian was also acquainted with many of the Fathers
— with Augustine, Lactantius, Jerome, Synesius, and
Cyprian. Erasmus had published an edition of Seneca, and
had advised scholars to write commentaries, and young
Calvin followed the advice of the Prince of Humanists.
Did he imitate him in more ? Did Calvin also disdain
to use the New Learning merely to display scholarship,
did he mean to put it to modern uses ? Francis i. was
busy with one of his sporadic persecutions of the
Huguenots when the book was published, and learned
conjectures have been made whether the two facts had any
designed connection — An exhortation addressed to an
emperor to exercise clemency, and a king engaging in
persecuting his subjects. Two things seem to show that
' I owe this inference to my brother, Professor Lindsay of St. Andrews ;
he adds that Plautus was greatly studied in the time of Calvin's youth im
France.
CALVIN : YOUTH AND EDUCATION 97
Calvin meant his book to be a protest against the persecu-
tion of the French Protestants. His preface is a darin<^
attack on the abuses which were connected with the
administration of justice in the public courts, and he says
distinctly that he hopes the Commentary will be of service
to the public.^
It seems evident from Calvin's correspondence that he
had joined the small band of Protestants in Paris, and
that he was intimate with Gerard Roussel, the Evangelical
preacher/ the friend of Marguerite of Navarre, of Lefevre,
of Farel, and a member of the " group of Meaux." The
question occurs. When did his conversion take place ?
This has been keenly debated ; ^ but the arguments concern
words more than facts, and arise from the various meanings
attached to the word " conversion " rather than from the
difficulty of determining the time. Calvin, who very rarely
reveals the secrets of his own soul, tells in his preface to
his Commentary on the Psalms, that God drew him from his
obstinate attachment to the superstitions of the Papacy
by a " sudden conversion," and that this took place after
he had devoted himself to the study of law in obedience
to the wishes of his father. It does not appear to have
been such a sudden and complete vision of divine gracious-
ness as Luther received in the convent at Erfurt. But it
1 Cf. liis letter to Francis Daniel, where he speaks about the publication
of the Commentary ; says that he has issued it at his own expense ; that some
of the Paris lecturers, to help its sale, had made it a book on which they
lectured, and hopes quod publico eiiam bono forte cessurum sit (Herminjard,
Correspondance, etc. ii. 417).
-In a letter to Francis Daniel, of date Oct. 27th, 1553, Calvin calls
•Gerard "our Friend" ; and in another, written about the end of the same
.month, he describes with a minuteness of detail impossible for anyone who
was not in the inner circle, the comedy acted by the students of the College
of Navarre, which was a satire directed ^igainst Marguerite, the Queen of
Navarre, and Gerard Roussel, and the affair of the connection of the
University of Paris and the Queen's poem, entitled le Miroir de Vdme
jj^cheresse; cf. Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. iii. 103-11.
^ Lang, Die BeJcchrung Johannes Calvins (1897) ; Doumergue, Jean
Calvin, etc. L 344./f. ; Miiller, " Calvins Bekehrung " {Kachrichte n der Gotl.
V Gel. for 1905, pp. 206/.) ; Wernle, " Noch einmal die Bekehrung Calvins"
{Zeitschriftfiir Kirchcwjeschichte, xxvii. 84/". (1906)).
/
98 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
was a beginning. He received then some taste of true
piety {aliquo mrce pietatis gusto). He was abashed to find,
he goes on to relate, that barely a year afterwards, those
who had a desire to learn what pure doctrine was
gradually ranged themselves around him to learn from
him who knew so little {me novitium adhuc et tironem).
This was perhaps at Orleans, but it may have been at
Bourges. When he returned to Paris to betake himself
to Humanist studies, he was a Protestant, convinced
intellectually as well as drawn by the pleadings of
the heart. He joined the little band who had gathered
round Estienne de la Forge, who met secretly in the
house of that pious merchant, and listened to the
addresses of Gerard Koussel. He was frequently called
upon to expound the Scriptures in the little society ;
and a tradition, which there is no reason to doubt, declares
that he invariably concluded his discourse with the words,
" If God be for us, who can be against us ? "
He was suddenly compelled to flee from Paris. The
theologians of the Sorbonne were vehemently opposed to the
" royal lecturers " who represented the Humanism favoured
by Margaret, the sister of Francis, and Queen of Navarre.
In their wrath they had dared to attack Margaret's famous
book, Miroir de Vdme piclieresse, and had in consequence
displeased the Court. Nicolas Cop, the friend of Calvin,
professor in the College of Sainte Barbe, was Eector of the
University (1533). He assembled the four faculties, and
. the faculty of medicine disowned the proceedings of the
theologians. It was the custom for the Rector to deliver
an address before the University yearly during his term
of office, and Cop asked his friend Calvin to compose the
oration.^ Calvin made use of the occasion to write on
" Christian Philosophy," taking for his motto, ''Blessed are
^ For the history of this Discourse written by Calvin and pronounced by
Cop, see E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin ; Les liommcs et les choses de son temps
(Lausanne, 1899), i. 331.^. ; A. Lang, Die Bekehrung J. Calvins (Leipzig,
1897), p. 46,/f. For accounts of the attempts to arrest Nicolas Cop and
Calvin, see the letter of Francis i. to the Parlement of Paris in Herminjard,
Correspondance, etc. iii. 114-118, and the editor's notes, also ]i. 418.
CALVIN : YOUTH AND EDUCATION 99
the poor in spirit " (Matt. v. 3). The discourse- was an
eloquent defence of Evangelical truth, in which the author
borrowed from Erasmus and from Luther, besides addinf^
characteristic ideas of his own. The wrath of the
Sorbonne may be imagined. Two monks were employed
to accuse the author of heresy before Parlement, which
responded willingly. It called the attention of the King
to papal Bulls against the Lutheran heresy. Meanwhile
people discovered that Calvin was the real author, and ])e
liad to flee from Paris. After wanderings throughout
France he found refuge in Basel (1535).
1 It was there that he finished his Christiancc Beligionis
\lnstitutio, which had for its preface the celebrated letter
addressed to Francis i. King of France. The book was
the ' strongest weapon Protestantism had yet forced
against the Papacy, and the letter "a bold, proclamation,
solemnly made by a young man of six-and-twenty, who,
more or less unconsciously, assumed the command of
Protestantism against its enemies, calumniators, and
persecutors." News had reached Basel that Francis,
w^ho was seeking the aUiance of the German Lutheran
Princes, and^ was posing as protector of the German
Protestants, had resolved to purge his kingdom of the so-
called heresy, and was persecuting his Protestant subjects.
This double-dealing gave vigour to Calvin's pen. He
says in his preface that he wrote the book with two
•distinct purposes. He meant it to prepare and qualify
students of theology for reading the divine Word, that
they may have an easy introduction to it, and be able to
proceed in it without obstruction. He also meant it to be
a vindication of the teaching of the Eeformers against the
calumnies of their enemies, who had urged the King of
France to persecute them and drive them from France.
His dedication was : To His Most Gracious Majesty, Francis^
King of France and his sovereign, J[ohn_ Calvin vAsheth
peace and salvation in Christ. Among other tilings he said :
V " I exhibit my confession to you that you may know the
nature of that doctrine which is the object of such
100 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
unbounded rage to those madmen who are now disturbing
your kingdom with fire and sword. For I shall not be
afraid to acknowledge that this treatise contains a summary
of that very doctrine which, according to their clamours,
deserves to be punished with imprisonment, banishment,
proscription, and flames, and to be exterminated from the
face of the earth."
! He meant to state in calm precise fashion what
i Protestants believed ; and he made the statement in such
ja way as to challenge comparison between those beliefs
and the teaching of the mediaeval Church. He toolc
j the Apostles' Creed, the venerable symbol of Western
j Christendom, and proceeded to show that when tested by
[this standard the Protestants were truer Catholics than
'the Eomanists. He took this Ajjostles' Creed, which had
been recited or sung in the public worship of the Church
of the West from the earliest times, which differed from
other creeds in this, that it owed its authority to no
Council, but sprang directly from the heart of the Church,
and he made it the basis of his Institutio. For the
Institutio is an expansion and exposition of the Apostles'
Creed, and of the four sentences which it explains. Its
basis is : I believe in God the Father ; and in His Son
Jesus Christ ; and in the Holy Ghost ; and in the Holy
Catholic Church. The Institutio is divided into four parts,
each part expounding one of these fundamental sentences.
The first part describes God, the Creator, or, as the Creed
says : " God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and
earth"; the second, God the Son, the Eedeemer and His
Eedemption; the third, God the Holy Ghost and His
Means of Grace ; the fourth, the Holy Catholic Church,
its nature and marks.
This division and arrangement, based on the Apostles
Creed, means that Calvin did not think he was expounding
a new theology or had joined a new Church. The
theology of the Eeformation was the old teaching of the
Church of Christ, and the doctrinal beliefs of the
Eeformers were those views of truth wliich were founded
CALVIN : YOUTH AND EDUCATION 101
on the Word of God, and which had been known, or at
least felt, by pious people all down the generations from
the earliest centuries. He and his fellow Reformers
believed and taught the old theology of the earliest creeds,
made plain and freed from the superstitions which
mediaeval theologians had borrowed from pagan -philosophy
and practices.
The first edition of the Institutio was published in
March 1536, in Latin. It was shorter and in many
ways inferior to the carefully revised editions of 1539
and 1559. In the later editions the arrangement of
topics was somewhat altered ; but the fundamental
doctrine remains unchanged ; the author was not a man
to publish a treatise on theology without carefully weighing
all that had to be said. In 1541, Calvin printed a French
edition, which he had translated himself "for the benefit
of his countrymen."
After finishing his Institutio (the MS. was completed
in August 1535, and the printing in March 1536), Calvin,
under the assumed name of Charles d'Espeville, set forth on
a short visit to Italy with a companion, Louis du Tillet,
who called^ himself Louis de Haulmont. He intended to
visit Eenee, Duchess of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XIL of
France, known for her piety and her inclination to the
Reformed faith. He also wished to see something of Italy.
After a short sojourn he was returning to Strassburg, with
the intention of settling there and devoting himself to a
life of quiet study, when he was accidentally compelled to
visit Geneva, and his whole plan of life was changed. The
story can best be told in his own words. He says in the
preface to his Commentary on the Psalms:
" As the most direct route to Strassburg, to which I then
intended to retire, was blocked by the wars, I had resolved
to pass quickly by Geneva, without staying longer than a
single night in that city. ... A person (Louis du Tillet)
who has now returned to the Papists discovered me and
made me known to others. Upon this Farel, who burned
with an extraordinary zeal to advance the Gospel, immedi-
102 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
ately strained every nerve to detain me. After having
learnt that my heart was set upon devoting myself to
private studies, for which 1 wished to keep myself free
from other pursuits, and finding that he gained nothing by
entreaties, he proceeded to utter an imprecation, that God
would curse my retirement and the tranquillity of the
studies which I sought, if I should withdraw and refuse
assistance when the necessity was so urgent. By this im-
])recation I was so stricken with terror that I desisted from
the journey which I had undertaken."
§ 5. Calvin with Far el in Geneva.
Calvin was twenty-seven years of age and Farel
twenty years older when they began to work together in
Geneva ; and, notwithstanding the disparity in age and
utter dissimilarity of character, the two men became
strongly attached to each other. " We had one heart and
one soul," Calvin says. Farel introduced him to the lead-
ing citizens, who were not much impressed by the reserved,
frail yoimg foreigner whose services their pastor was so
anxious to secure. They did not even ask his name. The
minute of the Council (Sept. 5th, 1536), giving him em-
ployment and promising him support, runs : " Master
William Farel stated the need for the lecture begun by
this Frenchman in St. Peter's." ^ Calvin had declined the
pastorate ; but he had agreed to act as " professor in
sacred learning to the Church in Geneva {Sacrarum litera-
rum in ecclesia Genevensi professor)." His power was of
that quiet kind that is scarcely felt till it has gripped and
holds.
j Jle began his work by giving lectures daily in . St.
(Peter's on the Epistles of St. Paul. They were soon felt
to be both powerful and attractive. Calvin soon made a
strong impression on the people of the city. An occasion
^ "Magister Gulielmus Farellus jjroponit sicuti sit necessaria ilia lectura
quam initiavit illc Gallus in Sancto I'etro. Supplicat advideri de illo
retiueudo et sibi alinientando. Super quo fuit advisum quod advideatur
de ipsum substincrido " (Ilerminjard, Correspondanc, etc. iv, 87 n.).
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 103
arose which revealed him in a way that his friends had
never before known. Bern had conquered the greater part
of the Pays de Vaud in the late war. Its Council was
determined to instruct the people of its newly acquired
territory in Evangelical principles by means of a public
Disputation, to be held at Lausanne during the" first week
of October.^ The three hundred and thirty-seven priests
of the newly conquered lands, the inmates of the thirteen
abbeys and convents, of the twenty-five priories, of the two
chapters of canons, were invited to come to Lausanne to
refute if they could the ten Evangelical Theses arranged by
Farel and Viret.^ The Council of Bern pledged itself
that there would be the utmost freedom of debate, not
only, for its own subjects, but " for all comers, to whatever
land they belonged." Farel insisted on this freedom in his
own trenchant way : " You may speak here a% boldly as
you please ; our arguments are neither faggot, fire, nor
sword, prison nor torture ; public executioners are not our
doctors of divinity. . . . Truth is strong enough to out-
weigh falsehood ; if you have it, bring it forward." The
Komanists were by no means eager to accept the challenge.
Out of the three hundred and thirty-seven priests invited,
only one hundred and seventy-four appeared, and of these
only four attempted to take part. Two who had promised
to discuss did not show themselves. Only ten of the forty
religious houses sent representatives, and only one of them
ventured to meet the Evangelicals in argument.^ As at
Bern in 1528, as at Geneva in May 1535, so here at
Lausanne in October 1536, the Romanists showed them-
selves unable to meet their opponents, and the poHcy of
1 For the Disputation at Lausanne, see Herminjard, Correspondancc,
etc. iv. 86 /. (Letter from Calvin to F. .Daniel, Oct. 13th, 1536) ; Corpus
Reformatorum, xxxvii. p. 876 f.. ; Ruchat, Histoirc de la Riformation de
la Suisse, vol. iv. ; Doumergue, Jean Calvin, ii. 214/.
2 The ten Theses are printed in the Corpus Refoi'maiorum, xxxvii.
701.
* Their names were Jean Mimard, regent of the school m Vevey ; Jacquea
Drogy, vicar of Morges ; Jean Michod, dean of Vevey ; Jean Berilly, vicar
of Prevessin ; and a Dominican monk, de Monbouson.
104 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
Bern in insisting on public Disputations was abundantly
justified.
Farel and Viret were the Protestant champions. Farel
preached the opening sermon in the cathedral on Oct. 1st, and
closed the conference by another sermon on Oct. 8th. The
discussion began on the Monday, when the huge cathedral
was thronged by the inhabitants of the city and of the sur-
rounding villages. In the middle of the church a space
was reserved for the disputants. There sat the four secre-
taries, the two presidents, and five commissioners repre-
senting Us Princes Chretiens Messieurs de Berne, distinguished
by their black doublets and shoulder-knots faced with red,
and by their broad-brimmed hats ornamented with great
bunches of feathers, — hats kept stiffly on heads as befiting
the representatives of such potent lords.
Calvin had not meant to speak ; Farel and Viret were
the orators ; he was only there in attendance. But on the
Thursday, when the question of the Eeal Presence was dis-
cussed, one of the Eomanists read a carefully prepared
paper, in the course of which he said that the Protestants
despised and neglected the ancient Fathers, fearing their
authority, which was against their views. Then Calviu
rose. He began with the sarcastic remark that the
j^fceople who reverenced the Fathers might spend some
little time in turning over their pages before they spoke
about them. He quoted from one Father after another, —
" Cyprian, discussing the subject now under review in the
third epistle of his second book of Epistles, says . . .
Tertullian, refuting the error of Marcion, says . . . The
author of some imperfect commentaries on St. Matthew,
which some have attributed to St. John Chrysostom, in the
11th homily about the middle, says ... St. Augustine, in
his 23rd Epistle, near the end, says . . . Augustine, in one
of his homilies on St. John's Gospel, the 8 th or the 9 th, I
am not sure at this moment which, says . . ." ; ^ and so on.
He knew the ancient Fathers as no one else in the century.
He had not taken their opinions second-hand from Peter
^ Corpus Eeformatommy xxxvii, 879-81.
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 105
of Lombardy's Sententice as did most of the Schoolmen and
contemporary Eomanist theologians. It was the first time
that he displayed, almost accidentally, his marvellous pat-
ristic knowledge, — a knowledge for which Melanchthon
could never sufficiently admire him.
But in Geneva the need of the hour was organisation
and familiar instruction, and Calvin set himself to work at
once. He has told us how he felt. " When I came first
to this church," he said, " there was almost nothing. Ser-
mons were preached ; ^ the idols had been sought out and
burned, but there was no other reformation ; everything
was in disorder." ^ In the second week of January he -had
prepared a draft of the reforms he wished introduced. It
was -presented to the Small Council by Farel ; the members
had considered it, and were able to transmit it with their
opinion to the Council of the Two Hundred on January
15th, 1537. It forms the basis of all Calvin's ecclesi-
astical work in Geneva, and deserves study.
The memorandum treats of four things, and four only
— the Holy Supper of our Lord {la Saincte Cene de Nostre
Seigneur), singing in public worship, the religious instruc-
tion of -children, and marriage.
In every rightly ordered' church, it is said, the Holy
Supper ought to be celebrated frequently, and well
attended. It ought to be dispensed every Lord's Day
at least ;^ such was the practice iii the Apostolic Church,
and ought to be ours ; the celebration is a great comfort
to all believers, for in it they are made partakers of the
Body and Blood of Jesus, of His death, of His life, of His
^ Wherever Farel went he had instituted what was called the "congre-
gation" : once a week in church, members of the audience were invited to
ask questions, which the preacher answered. These "congregations" were
an institution all over Romance Switzerland. The custom prevailed in
Geneva when Calvin came there, und it was continued.
2 Bonnet, Lettres franqaises de Calvin, ii. 574. .
^ "II seroyt bien a d^sirer que la communication de la Saincte C^ne de
J^sucrist fust tons les dimenches pour Ic moins en usage, quant I'Eglise est
assemblee en multitude" {Corpus Rcformatorum, xxxviii. i. 7); cf. the first
edition of the Institutio (1536): "Singulis, ad minimum, hebdomadibus
proponenda erat christianorum ccetui mensa Domini "
106 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
Spirit, and of all His benefits. But the present weakness
of the people makes it undesirable to introduce so
sweeping a change, and therefore it is proposed that the
Holy Supper be celebrated once each month " in one of
the three places where sermons are now delivered — in the
churches of St. Peter, St. Gervais, and de Eive." The
celebration, however, ought to be for the whole Church of
Geneva, and not simply for those living in the quarters
of the town where these churches are. Thus every one
will have the opportunity of monthly communion. But
if unworthy partakers approach the Table of the Lord,
the Holy Supper will be soiled and contaminated. To
prevent this, the Lord has placed the disci'pline dc
V excommunication within His Church in order to maintain
its purity, and this ought to be used. Perhaps the best
way of exercising it is to appoint men of known worth,
dwelling in different quarters of the town, who ought to
be trusted to watch and report to the ministers all in their
neighbourhood who despise Christ Jesus by living in open
sin. The ministers ought to warn all such persons not
to come to the Holy Supper, and the discipline of ex-
communication only begins when such warnings are
unheeded.
Congregational singing of Psalms ought to be part of
the public worship of the Church of Christ ; for Psalms
sung in this way are really public prayers, and when they
are sung hearts are moved ' and worshippers are incited to
form similar prayers for themselves, and to render to God
tlio like praises with the same loving loyalty. But as all
this is unusual, and the people need to be trained, it may
l>e well to select children, to teach them to sing in a clear
aiid distinct fashion in the congregation, and if the people
listen with all attention and follow " with the heart what
is sung by the mouth," they will, " little by little, become
accustomed to sing together " as a congregation.^
^ Calvin says : ^'C'est une chose Hen expediente a V idification de I'esglise,
de chanter aulciinffs pscavmes eii fornic d'oraysons puhlicqs." The transla-
tions of the Psalms by Clement Slarot, which were afterwards used in the
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 107
It is most important for the due preservation of
purity of doctrine that children from their youth should
be instructed how to give a reason for their faith, and
therefore some simple catechism or confession of faith
ought to be prepared and taught to the children. At
" certain seasons of the year " the children ought to be
brought before the pastors, who should examine them and
expound the teachings of the catechism.
The ordinance of marriage has been disfigured by the
evil and un scriptural laws of the Papacy, and it were well
that the whole matter be carefully thought over and some
simple rules laid down agreeable to the Word of God.
This memorandum, for it is scarcely more, was
dignified with the name of the Articles {Articuli de
reyimine ecclesice). It was generally approved by the
Small Council and the Council of Two Hundred, who made,
besides, the definite regulations that the Holy Supper
shoul'd be celebrated four times in the year, and that
announcements of marriages should be made for ' three
successive Sundays before celebration. But it is. very
doubtful whether the Council went beyond this general
approval, or that they gave definite and deliberate
consent to Calvin's proposals about " the discipline of
excommunication."
These Articles were superseded by the' famous
Ordonnances eccUsiastiques de VEglise de Geneve, adopted on
Nov. 20th, 1541 ; but as they are the first instance in
which Calvin publicly presented his special ideas about
ecclesiastical government, it may be well to describe what
these were. To understand them aright, to see the new
thing w^hich Calvin tried to introduce into the Church life
of the sixteenth century, it is necessary to distinguish
between two things which it must be confessed were
Church of Geneva, were not published till 1541, and the pseaumcn may have
been religious canticles such as were used in the Reformed Church of
Neuchatel from 1533 ; but it ought to be remembered that translations of
the Psalms of David did exist in France before Marot's ; cf. Herminjard,
Corrcspondcviice, iv. 163 n.
108 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
practically entangled with each other in these days — the
attempt to regulate the private life by laws municipal
or national, and the endeavour to preserve the solemnity
and purity of the celebration of the Holy Supper.
When historians, ecclesiastical or other, charge Calvin
with attempting the former, they forget that there was
no need for him to do so. Geneva, like every other
i mediaeval town, had its laws which interfered with private
life at every turn, and that in a way which to our
modern minds seems the grossest tyranny, but which
was then a commonplace of city life. Every medieeval
town had its laws against extravagance in dress, in eating
and in drinking, against cursing and swearing, against
gaming, dances, and masquerades. They prescribed the
number of guests to be invited to weddings, and dinners,
and dances ; when the pipers were to play, when they
were to leave off, and what they were to be paid. It
must be confessed that when one turns over the pages
of town chronicles, or reads such a book as Baader's
Niirnherger Polizeiordnung, the thought cannot help arising
that the Civic Fathers, like some modern law-rhakers, were
content to place striugont regulations on the statute-book,
and then, exhausted by their moral endeavour, had no
energy left to put them into practice. But every now
and then a righteous fit seized them, and maid-servants
were summoned before the Council for wearing silk aprons,
or fathers for giving too luxurious wedding feasts, or
citizens for working on a Church festival, or a mother
for adorning her daughter too gaily for her marriage.
The citizens of every mediaeval town lived under a
municipal discipline which we would pronounce to be
vexatious and despotic. Every instance quoted by modern
historians to prove, as they think, Calvin's despotic inter-
ference with ^ the details of private life, can be paralleled
by references to the police-books of mediaeval towns in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To make them ground of
accusation against Calvin is simply to plead ignorance of
tlie whole municipal police of the later Middle Ages. To
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 109
say that Calvin acquiesced in or approved of such legisla-
tion is simply to show that he belonged to the sixteenth
century. When towns adopted the Reformation, the spirit
of civic legislation did not change, but some old regulations
were allowed to lapse, and fresh ones suggested by the new
ideas took their place. There was nothing novel in the
law which Bern made for the Pays de Vaud in 1536
(Dec. 24th), prohibiting dancing with the exception of
"trois danses honetes " at weddings; but it was a new
regulation which prescribed that parents must bring their
daughters to the marriage altar " le chiefz convert." It
was not a new thing when Basel in 1530 appointed three
honourable men (one from the Council and two from the
commonalty) to watch over the morals of the inhabitants
of each parish, and report to the Council. It was new,
but quite in the line of mediteval civic legislation, when
Bern forbade scandalous persons from approaching the
Lord's Table (1532).
Calvin's thought moved on another plane. He was
distinguished among the Reformers for his zeal to restore
again the conditions which had ruled in the Church of the
first three centuries. This had been a favourite idea with
Lefevre,^ who had taught it, to Farel, Gerard Roussel, and
the other members of the "group of Meaux." Calvin
may have received it from Roussel ; but there ^is no need
to suppose that it did not come to him quite indepen-
dently. He had studied the Fathers of the first three
i"Et comment ne souhaiterions-nous pas voir notre siecle ramene ^
I'image de cette ^glise primitive, puisqu'alors Christ recevait un.plus pur
hommage, et que I'^clat de son nom etait plus au loin r^pandu ? . . .
Puisse cette extension de la foi, puisse cette purete du culte, aujourd'hui
que reparait la lumiere de l':^vangile, nous etre aussi accord^es par celui
qui est Wni au-dessus de toutes choses ! Aujourd'hui, jo lo rdpete, que
reparait la lumiere de I'lilvaiigile, qui sc rcpand enHn de nouvcau dans le
monde et y eclaire de ses divins rayons un grand nombre d'espnts ; de telle
sorte que, sans pailer de bien d'autres avantages, depuis le temps de
Constantine, ou rl:glise pri.i.itive pen a pen degendree perdit tout a fait
son caracter, il n'y a eu dans aueune autre epoque plus de counaissance
des lanc-ues.' . . ."— Lefevre d'l^:taples, aux Lecteurs chritiens de Meaux
(Hermiujard, Correspondance, etc. i. 93).
110 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
centuries more diligently than any of his contemporaries.
He recognised as none of them did that the Holy Supper
of the Lord was the centre of the religious life of the
Church, and the apex and crown of her worship. He saw
how careful the Church of the first three centuries had been
to protect the sacredness of the simple yet profound rite ;
and that it had done so by preventing the approach of all
unworthy communicants. Discipline was the nerve of the
early Church, and excommunication was the nerve of dis-
cipline ; and Calvin wished to introduce both. Moreover, he
knew that in the early Church it belonged to the membership
and to the ministry to exercise discipline and to pronounce
excommunication. He desired to reintroduce all these dis-
tinctive features of the Church of the first three centuries
— weekly communion, discipline and excommunication
exercised by the pastorate and the members. He re-
cognised that when the people had been accustomed to
come to the Lord's Table only once or twice in the year,
it was impossible to introduce weekly communion all at
once. But he insisted that the warnings of St. Paul
about unworthy communicants were so weighty that
notorious sinners ought to be prevented from approaching
the Holy Supper, and that the obstinately impenitent
should be excommunicated. This and this alone was the
distinctive thing about Calvin's proposals ; this was the
new conception which he introduced.
Calvin's mistake was that, while he believed that the
membership and the pastorate should exercise discipline
and excommunication, he also insisted that the secular
])ower should enforce the censures of the Church. His
ideas worked well in the French Church, a Church " under
the cross," and in the same position as the Church of the
early centuries. But the conception that the secular power
ought to support with civil pains and penalties the dis-
ciplinary decisions of ecclesiastical Courts, must have pro-
duced a tyranny not unlike what had existed in the mediaeval
Church. Calvin's ideas, however, were never accepted
»ave nominally in any of the Swiss Churches — not even
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA HI
in Geneva. The very tliought of excommunication in the
hands of the Church was eminently distasteful to the
Protestants of the sixteenth century ; they had sutfcred too
much from it as exercised by the Roman Catholic Churcli.
Nor did it agree with the conceptions which the macns-
trates of the Swiss republics had of their own dignity, that
they should be the servants of the ministry to carry out
their sentences.^ The leading Reformers in German Swit-
zerland almost universally held that excommunication, if it
ever ought to be practised, should be in the hands of the
civil authorities.
Zwingli did not think that the Church should exercise
the right of excommunication. He declared that the
example of the first three centuries was not to be followed,
because in these days the " Church could have no assistance
from the Emperors, who were pagans " ; whereas in Zurich
there was a Christian magistracy, who could relieve the
Church of what must be in any case a disagreeable duty.
His successor, Bullinger, the principal adviser of the divines
of the English Reformation, went further. Writing to Leo
Jud (1532), he declares that excommunication ought not to
belong to the Church, and that he doubts whether it should
be exercised even by the secular authorities ; and in a letter
to a Romance pastor (Nov. 24th, 1543) he expounds his
views about excommunication, and states how he dilfers from
his ojjtirnos fratres Gcdlos (Viret, Farel, and Calvin).- The
(Tcrman Swiss Reformers took the one side, and the French
Swiss Reformers took the other ; and the latter were all men
who had learned to reverence the usages of the Church of
the first three centuries, and desired to see its methods of
ecclesiastical discipline restored.
The people invariably sided with the German -speaking
^ The i^revailing idea was that the Evangelical pastors were the servants
of the comnnmity, and therefore of the Councils Avhich represented it. J. J.
Watteville, the celebrated Advoyer or President of Bern, and a strong and
generous supporter of the Reformation, was accustomed to say : "Nothing
prevents me dismissing a servant when he displeases me ; why sliould not a
town send its pastor away if it likes? " (B.Qxmmydxd,Correspoiidance,\n.Z^A n.),
- Herminjard, Correspondancc, etc. ix. 110.
112 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
Reformers.^ Calvin managed, with great difficulty, to intro-
duce excommunication into Geneva after his returm from
exile, but not in a way conformable to his ideas. Farel
could not get it introduced into Neuchatel. He believed,
founding on the New Testament,^ that the membership of
each parish had the right to exclude from the Holy Supper
sinners who had resisted all admonitions. But the Council
and community of Neuchatel would not tolerate the
" practice and usage of Excommunication," and did not
allow it to appear in their ecclesiastical ordinances of
1542 or of 1553. Oecolampadius ^induced the Council of
Basel to permit excommunication, and to inscribe the names
of the excommunicate on placards fixed on the doors of the
churches. Zwingli remonstrated vigorously, and the practice
was abandoned. Bern was willing to warn open sinners
from approaching the Lord's Table, but would not hear of
excommunication, and declared roundly that "ministers,
who were sinners themselves, being of flesh and blood,
should not attempt to penetrate into the individual con-
sciences, whose secrets were known to God alone." Viret
tried to introduce a discipline eccUsiastique into the Pays de
Vaud, but was unable to induce magistrates or people to
accept it. The young Protestant Churches of Switzerland,
with the very doubtful exception of Geneva after 1541,
refused to allow the introduction of the disciplinary usages
of the primitive Church. They had no objection to dis-
cipline, however searching and vexatious, provided it was
simply an application of the old municipal legislation, to
which they had for generations been accustomed, to the
higher moral requirements of religion.* It was univers-
' Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. viii. 280, 281, ix. 117, vi. 183 ;
Ruchat, Histoire de la Reformation de la Suisse, ii. 520/. ; Farel, Summaire,
edition of 1867, PP- 78/".
- Matt, xviii. 15-17.
2 The action of the people of the four parishes which made the district
of Thiez illustrates a condition of mind not easily sympathised with hy us,
and it shows what the commonalty of the sixteenth century thought of the
powers of the Councils which ruled their city republics. The district
belonged to Geneva, and was under the rule of the Council of that city.
^ CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 113
ally recognised that the standard of moral liviDg all over
French Switzerland was very low, and that stringent
measures were required to improve it. No exception
was taken to the severe reprimand which the Council of
Bern addressed to the subject Council of Lausanne for their
failure to correct the evil habits of the people of that old
episcopal town ; ^ but such discipline had to be exercised
in the old mediaeval w^ay through the magistrates, and not
in any new-fangled fashion borrowed from the primitive
Church. So far as Switzerland was concerned, Calvin's en-
treaties to model their ecclesiastical life on what he believed
with Lefevre to be the golden period of the Church's history,
fell on heedless ears. One must go to the French Church,
and' in a lesser degree to the Church of Knox in Scotland,
to see Calvin's ideas put in practice ; it is vain to look for
this in Switzerland.
The Catechism for children was published in 1537, and
was meant, according to the author, to give expression to a
simple piety, rather than to exhibit a profound knowledge of
The inhabitants had been permitted to retain the Romanist religion. They
were, nevertheless, excommunicated by their Bishop for clinging to Geneva
mth loyalty. They were honest Roman Catholics ; they could not bear the
thought of living under excommunication, and longed for absolution ; the
Bishop would not gi-ant it ; so the foyplc applied to the Council of Geneva to
absolve them, which the Council did by a minute which runs as follows :
" (April 4th, 1535) Sur ce qu'est propose par nostre chastelain de Thiez, que
ceux de Thiez font doubte soy presenter en I'esglise a ces Pasques prochaines
(April 16th), k cause d'aucunes lettres d'excommuniement qui sont este
centre aucuns ex6cutees, par quoi volentier ils desirent avoir remede de ab-
solution. . . . Est este resolu que Ton escrive une patente aux vicaires du
diet mandement (district), que nous les tenons pour absols." This was
enough. The people went cheerfully to their Easter services (Herminjard,
Correspondance, etc. iv. 26 ?i. ).
^ Cf. the letter of the Council of Bern to the Council of Lausanne : " (Jul}'
1541) : Concemant minas contra ministrum Verbi, lasciviam vitae civiuni,
bacchanalia, ebrietates, commessationes, contemptum Evangelii, rythmos
impudicos, etc., ceux de Lausanne sont vertement reprimand's. On leur
remontre leur negligence k chatier les vices. II leur est ordonn^ de punir,
dans le terme d'un mois, les bacchantes et aussi celui qui a menace le predicant
et I'a interpell' dans la rue. II estegalement ordonneaux ambassadeurs qui
seront envoyes pour les appels, de faire de severes remonstrances devant le
Conseil et les Bourgeois, et de les menacer en les exhortant k s'amender "
(Herminjard, Correspondance, vii. 145).
8**
114 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
religious truth. But, as Calvin himself felt later, it was too
theological for children, and was superseded by a second
Catechism, published immediately after his return to
Geneva in 1541. The first Catechism was entitled Instruc-
tion and Confession of Faith for the use of the Church of
Geneva. It expounded successively the Ten Commandments,
the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Sacraments.
The duties of the pastorate and of the magistracy were
stated in appendices.^
The Confession of Faith had for its full title. Confession
de la Foy laquelle tons hourgois et hahitans de Geneve et
suhjectz du pays doyvent jurer de garder et tenir extraicte de
VInstruction dont on %Lse en VEglise de la dicte ville} It
reproduced the contents of the Instruction, and was, like
it, a condensed summary of the Institutio.
This Confession has often been attributed to Farel, but
there can be little doubt that it came from the pen of
Calvin.^ It was submitted to the Council and approved
by them, and they agreed that the people should be asked
to swear to maintain it, the various divisions of the
districts of the town appearing for the purpose before the
secretary of the Council. The proposal was then sent
down to the Council of the Two Hundred, where it was
assented to, but not without opposition. The minutes
show that some members remained faithful to the Eomanist
faith. They said that they ought not to be compelled
to take an oath which was against their conscience.
Others who professed themselves Protestants asserted that
to swear to a Confession took from them their liberty.
^ This first Catechism has been republished and edited under the title,
Le Cat6chisme fran<;ais de Calvin, puhlie en 1537, reimprime pour la premUre
fois d'apres un exemplaire nouvellement retrouv6 et suivi de la plus ancienne
Confession de foi de VEglise de Geneve, avec deux notices, Vune historique,
Vautre hiUiographique, par Albert Rilliet et Theophile Dufour, 1878. The
curious bibliocrraphical history of the book is given in Douraergue, Jean
Calvin, ii. p. 230 ; and at greater length in the preface to the reprint.
- Miiller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirclie, p. 111.
^ The question is carefully discussed by Rilliet in his Le Catechisme
francais de Calvin, and by Doumergue, Jean Calvin, etc. ii. 237-39.
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 115
" We do not wish to be constrained," they said, " but to
live in our liberty." But in the end it was resolved to do
as the Council had recommended. So day by day the
dizenniers, or captains of the divisions of the town, brouo-ht
their people to the cathedral, where the secretary stood in
the pulpit to receive the oath. The magistrates set the
example, and the people were sworn in batches, raising
their hands and taking the oath. But there were mal-
contents who stayed away, and there were beginnings of
trouble which was to increase. Deputies from Bern,
unmindful of the fact that their city had sworn in the
same way to their creed, encouraged the dissentients by
saying that no one could take such an oath without
perjuring himself; and this opinion strengthened the
opposition. But the Council of Bern disowned its deputies,^
and refused any countenance to the malcontents, and the
trouble passed. All Geneva was sworn to maintain the
Confession.
Meanwhile the ministers of Geneva had been urging
decision about the question of discipline and excommunica-
tion ; and the murmurs against them grew stronger.. The
Council was believed to be too responsive to the pleadings
of the pastors, and a stormy meeting of the General
Council (Nov. 2oth) revealed the smouldering discontent.
On the 4th of January (1538) the Councils of Geneva
rejected entirely the proposals to institute a discipline
which would protect the profanation of the Lord's Table,
by resolving that the Holy Supper was to be refused to
no person seeking to partake. On the 3rd of February,
at the annual election of magistrates, four S;yTidie8 were
chosen who were known to be the most resolute opponents
of Calvin and of Farel. The new Council did not at
first sliow itself hostile to the preachers : their earliest
minutes arc rather deferential. But a large part of the
citizens were violently opposed to ' the preachers ; the
^ The letter from Bern (dated Nov. 28th) was read to the recalcitrants,
who gave way and accepted the Confession on Jan. 4th, 1538 (Henninjard,
Corresjjoiidance, iv. 3-10 /«.).
116 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
Syndics were their enemies : collision was bound to come
sooner or later.
It was at this stage that a proposal from Bern brought
matters to a crisis.
The city contained many inhabitants who had been
somewhat unwillingly dragged along the path of Reforma-
tion. Those who clung to the old faith were reinforced
by others who had supported the Reformation simply as a
means of freeing the city from the rule of the Prince
Bishop, and who had no sympathy with the religious
movement. The city had long been divided into two
parties, and the old differences reappeared as soon as the
'city declared itself Protestant. The malcontents took
advantage of everything that could assist them to stay the
tide of Reformation and hamper the work of the ministers.
They patronised the Anabaptists when they appeared in
(rcneva ; they supported the accusation brought against
Farel and Calvin by Pierre Caroli, that they were Arians
because they refused to use the Athanasian Creed ; above
all, they declared that they stood for liberty, and called
themselves Libertines. When Bern interfered, they
hastened to support its ecclesiastical suggestions.
j Bern had never been contented with the position in
which it stood to Geneva after its conquest of the Pays de
'Vaud. When the war was ended, or rather before it was
finished, and while the Bernese army of deliverance was
occupying the town, the accompanying deputies of Bern
had claimed for their city the rights over Geneva previously
exercised by the Prince Bishop and the Vidomne or re-
presentative of the Duke of Savoy, whom their army had
' conquered. They claimed to be the overlords of Geneva,
as they succeeded in making themselves masters of Lausanne
' and the Pays de Vaud. The people of Geneva resisted the
demand. They declared, Froment tells us, that they had
not struggled and fought for more than thirty years to
assert their liberties, in order to make themselves the
vassals of their allies or of anyone in the wide world.'
^ Adcs et gestes marvcillcux, p. 215/.
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 117
Bern threatened to renounce alliance; but Geneva stood
firm ; there was always France to appeal to for aid. In
the end Bern had to be content with much less than it
had demanded.*
I Geneva became an independent republic, served heir
to all the signorial rights of the Prince Bishop and to all
his revenues, successor also to all the justiciary rights of
the Vidomne or representative of the House of Savoy. It
gained complete sovereignty within the city; it also
retained the same sovereignty over the districts (mande-
ments) of Penney, Jussy, and Thiez which had belonged to
the Prince Bishop. On the other side, Bern received the
district of Gaillard ; Geneva bound itself to make' no
alliance nor conclude any treaty without the consent of
Bern ; and to admit the Bernese at all times into their
city. The lordship over one or two outlying districts
was divided — Geneva beingr recocjnised as sovereign, and
having the revenues, and Bern keeping the right to judge
appeals, etc.
It seemed to be the policy of Bern to create a strong
State by bringing under its strict control the greater
portion of Komance Switzerland. Her subject territories,
Lausanne, a large part of the Pays de Vaud, Gex, Chablais,
Orbe, etc., surrounded Geneva on almost every side. If
only Geneva were reduced to the condition of ,the other
Prince Bishopric, Lausanne, Bern's dream of rule would be
|realised. The Eeformed Church was a. means of solidifyhig
these conquests. Over all Eomance territories subject
to Bern the Bernese ecclesiastical arrangements were to
rule. Her Council was invariably the last court of ap])eal.
Her consistory was reproduced in all these French-
speaking local Churches. Her religious usages and
ceremonies spread all over this Eomance Switzerland.
The Church in Geneva "was independent. Might it not
be brought into nearer conformity, and might not
conformity in ecclesiastical matters lead to the politic^il
incorporation which Bern so ardently desired ? Tfie
evangelist of almost all these Eomance Protestant
118 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
Churches had been Farel. Their ecclesiastical usages
had grown up under his guidance. It would conduce to
harmony in the attempt to introduce uniformity with
Bern if the Church of Geneva joined. Such was the
external political situation to be kept in view in consider-
ing the causes which led to the banishment of Calvin
from Geneva.
In pursuance of its scheme of ecclesiastical conformity,
the Council of Bern summoned a Synod, representing most
of the Evangelical Churches in western Switzerland, and
laid its proposals before them. No detailed account
of the proceedings has been preserved. There were
probably some dissentients, of whom Farel w^as most
likely one, who pled that the Eomance Churches might be
left to preserve their own usages. But the general result was
that Bern resolved to summon another Synod, representing
the Romance Churches, to meet at Lausanne (March 30 th,
1538). They asked (March 5th) the Council of Geneva
to permit the attendance of Farel and Calvin.^ The letter
reached Geneva on March 11th, and on that day the
Genevan magistrates, unsolicited by Bern and without
consulting their ministers, resolved to introduce the Bernese
ceremonies into the Genevan Church. Next day they
sent the letter of Bern to Farel and Calvin, and at the
same time warned the preachers that they would not be
allowed to criticise the proceedings of the Council in the
pulpit. Neither Farel nor Calvin made any remonstrance.
They declared that they were willing to go to Lausanne;
asked the Council if they had any orders to give, and
said that they were ready to obey them ; and this
although a second letter (March 20th) had come from
Bern saying that if the Genevan preachers would not
accept the Bern proposals they would not be permitted
to attend the Synod.
Farel and Calvin accordingly went to the Synod at
Lausanne, and were parties to the decision arrived at, w^hich
^ Herminjard, Correspondancc, etc. iv. 403, 404, 407 ; Doumergue, Jean
Calvin^ etc. ii. 278.
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 119
was to accept the usages of Bern — that all baptisms
should be celebrated at stone fonts placed at the entrance
of the churches ; that unleavened bread should be used at
the Holy Supper ; and that four religious festivals should '
be observed annually, Christmas, New Year's Day, the
Annunciation, and the Day of Ascension — with the stipula-
tion that Bern should warn its officials not to be too hard
on poor persons for working on these festival days.^
When the Council of Bern had got its ecclesiastical
proposals duly adopted by the representatives of the
various Churches interested, its Council wrote (April loth)
to the Council and to the ministers of Geneva asking
them to confer together and arrange that the Church of
Geneva should adopt these usages — the magistrates of
Bern having evidently no knowledge of the hasty resolu-
tion of the Genevan Council already mentioned. The
letter was discussed at a meeting of Council (April 19th,
1538), and several minutes, all relating to ecclesiastical
matters, were passed. It was needless to come to any
resolution about the Bern usages ; they had been adopted
already. The letter from Bern was to be shown to Farel
and Calvin, and the preachers were to be asked and were
to answer, yea or nay, would they at once introduce the
Bern ceremonies? The preachers said that the usages
could not be introduced at once. The third .Genevan
preacher, £Ue Coraut, had spoken disrespectfully of the
Council in the city, and was forbidden to preach, upon
threat of imprisonment, until he had been examined
about his words.^ Lastly, it was resolved that the Holy
Supper should be celebrated at once according to the Bern
rites; and that if Farel and Calvin refused, the Council
was to engage other preachers who would obey their
orders.^
1 Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. iv. 413.
2 On April 8th it ^vas reported that Corant Itad said in a sermon that
Geneva %vas a realm of tipplers, and that the town wiis governed by drunkards
(from all accounts a true statement of fact, but scarcely suitable lor a
sermon), and had been brought before the Council in consequence.
3 Herminjard, Corrcppondancr, etc. iv. 413-10, 420-22.
120 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
Coraut, the blind preacher, preached as usual (^pril
20 th). He was at once arrested and imprisoned. In the
afternoon, Farel and Calvin, accompanied by several of the
most eminent citizens of Geneva, appeared before the
Council to protest against Coraut's imprisonment, and to
demand his release — Farel speaking with his usual daring
vehemence, and reminding the magistrates that but for his
work in the city they would not be in the position they
occupied. The request was refused, and the Council took
advantage of the presence of the preachers to ask them
whether they would at once introduce the Bern usages.
They replied that they had no objection to the ceremonies,
and would be glad to use them in worship provided they
were properly adopted,^ but not on a simple order from the
Council. Farel and Calvin were then forbidden to preach.
Next day the two pastors preached as usual — Calvin in
St. Peter's and Farel in St. Gervaise. The Council met
to consider this act of disobedience. Some were for sending
the preachers to prison at once ; but it was resolved to
summon the Council of the Tico Hundred on the morrow
(April 22nd) and the General Council on the 24th. The
letters of Bern (March 5th, March 20th, April 15th) were
read, and the Two Hundred resolved that they would " live
according to the ceremonies of Bern." What then was to
be done with Calvin and Farel ? Were they to be sent to
the town's prison ? No ! Better to wait till the Council
secured other preachers (it had been trying to do so and
had failed), and then dismiss them. The General Council
then met ; ^ resolved to " live according to the ceremonies
of Bern," and to banish the three preachers from the
town, giving them three days to collect their eflects.^
^ Calvin says that he wished the matter to be regularly brought before
the people and discussed : " Concio etiam a noHs habeatur de ceremomarum
libertate, deinde ad covformitatem popiilum adhortcmur, propositis ejus
rationibus. Demiim liberum ecclesice judicium- pe)-mittatt(r." Cf. the
memorandum presented to the Synod of Zurich by Calvin and Farel,
ibid. V. 3 ; Corpus Reforniator'tim, xxxviii. ii. 191.
2 Hernunjard, Correspondence, etc. iv. 423, 425, 426, 427, v. 3, 24.
^ It is worth mentioning that while the three letters from Bern were
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 121
Calvin and Farel were sent into exile, and the magistrates
made haste to seize the furniture which had been given
them when they were settled as preachers.
Calvin long remembered the threats and dangers of
these April days and nights. He was insulted in the
streets. Bullies threatened to " throw him into the Ehone."
Crowds of the baser sort gathered round his house.
They sang ribald and obscene songs under his windows.
They fired shots at night, more than fifty one night,
before his door — " more than enough to astonish a poor
scholar, timid as I am, and as I confess I have always
been." ^ It was the memory of thepe days that made him
loathe the very thought of returning to Geneva.
The two Eeformers, Calvin and Farel, left the town at
once, determined to lay their case before the Council of
Bern, and also before the Synod of Swiss Churches which
was about to meet at Zurich (April 28th, 1538). The
Councillors of Bern were both shocked and scandalised at
the treatment the preachers had received from the Council
of Geneva, and felt it all the more that their proposal of
conformity had served as the occasion. They wrote at
once to Geneva (April 27th), begging the Council to undo
what they had done ; to remember that their proposal for
uniformity had never been meant to serve as occasion
for compulsion in matters which were after all indifferent.^
Bern might be masterful, but it was almost always courteous.
The secular authority might be the motive force in all
ecclesiastical matters, but it was to be exercised through the
brought before the Council of the Two Hundred, the decisions of the
Lausanne Synod were produced at the General Council. Did the Council
^'ish to give their decision a semblance of ecclesiastical authority ?
^ Bonnet, Les Leitres frangaises de Calvin, ii. 575,^576.
^ " A ceste cause, vous instantement, tres-acertes et en fraternelle affec-
tion prions, admonestons et requerons que ... la rigueur que ten^s aux dits
Farel et Calvin admod^rer, pour I'amour de nous et pour ^viter scaiidale,
contemplans que ce qu'avons a vous et a eulx escript pour la conforinite des
cerimonies de I'Esglise, est procede de bonne affection et par mode de
requeste, et non pas pour vous, ne eulx, constraindre a ces choses, que sont
indifferentes en I'Esglise, comme le pain de la Cene et aultres " (Henriujard,
? Correspondance, etc. iv. 428).
122 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
machinery of the Church. The authorities of Bern had
been careful to establish an ecclesiastical Court, the Con-
sistory, of two pastors and three Councillors, who dealt
with all ecclesiastical details. It encouraged the meeting
of Synods all over its territories. Its proposals for uni-
formity had been addressed to both the pastors and the
Council of Geneva, and had spoken of mutual consulta-
tion. They had no desire to seem even remotely responsible
for the bludgeoning of the Genevan ministers. The
Council of Geneva answered with a mixture of servility and
veiled insolence^ (April 30th). Nothing could be made of
them.
From Bern, Farel and Calvin went to Zurich, and there
addressed a memorandum to a Synod, which included
representatives from Zurich, Bern, Basel, Schaffhausen, St.
Gallen, Muhlhausen, Biel (Bienne), and the two banished
ministers from Geneva. It was one of those General
Assemblies which in Calvin's eyes represented the Church
Catholic, to which all particular Churches owed deference,
if not simple obedience. The Genevan pastors presented
their statement with a proud humility. They were willing
to accept the ceremonies of Bern, matters in themselves
indifferent, but which might be useful in the sense of
showing the harmony prevailing among the Eeformed
Churches ; but they must be received by the Church of
Geneva, and not imposed upon it by the mere fiat of
the secular authority. They were quite willing to
expound them to the people of Geneva and recommend
them. But if they were to return to Geneva, they must
be allowed to defend themselves against their calumniators ;
and their programme for the organisation of the Church
of Geneva, which had already been accepted but had not
been put in practice (January 16th, 1537),^ must be
introduced. It consisted of the following : — the establish-
ment of an ecclesiastical discipline, that the Holy
^ For the letter of Bern to Geneva, and the answer of Geneva, cf.
Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. iv. 427-430.
2 Ibid. iv. 165 n.
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 123
Supper might not be profaned ; the division of the city
into parishes, that each minister might be acquainted with
his own flock ; an increase in the number of ministers for
the town ; regular ordination of pastors by the laying on
of hands ; more frequent celebration of the Holy Supper,
according to the practice of the primitive Church.^ They
confessed that perhaps they had been too severe; on
this personal matter they were willing to be guided.^ They
listened with humility to the exhortations of some of the
members of the Synod, who prayed them to use more
gentleness in dealing with an undisciplined people. But
on the question of principle and on the rights of . the
Church set over against the State, they were firm. It
was. probably the first time that the Erastians of eastern
Switzerland had listened to such High Church doctrine;
but they accepted it and made it their own for the time
being at least. The Synod decided to write to the Council
of Geneva and ask them to have patience with their
preachers and receive them back again : and they asked
the deputies from Bern to charge themselves with the
affair, and da their best to see Farel and Calvin reinstated
in Geneva.
The deputies of Bern accepted the commission, and the
Geneva pastors went back to Bern to await the arrival of the
Bern deputies from Zurich. They waited, full o^ auxiety,
for nearly fourteen days. Then the Bern Council were
ready to fulfil the request of the Syriod.^ Deputies were
appointed, and, accompanied by Farel and Calvin, set out
iThe memoir presented to the Synod of Zurich has been ininted by
Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. v. 3-6, and in. the Corpus Eeformatorum,
xxxviii. ii. 190-192. The conclusion prays Bern to drive from their territory
ribald and obscene songs and catches, tliat the people of Geneva may not
cite their example as an excuse.
* " Wir habent ouch durch-Etlich unsere vorordneten uffs ernstlichest
mit ihnen reden lassen sich etlicher ungeschigter scherpffe zemaassen und
sich by disem unerbuwenem volgk Cristenlicher sennffmutigkeit zu
beflyssen" {Corpus Ref or matoi-iim, xxxviii. ii. 193).
3 The minute of the Council of Bern says : ''The Genevans had refused
to receive Calvin and Farel. If my lords need preachers, they will keep
them in mind" (Herminjard, Correspouiiincc, v. 20 n.).
124 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
for Geneva. The two pastors waited on the frontier at
Noyon or at Genthod while the deputies of Bern went on
to Geneva. They had an audience of the Council (May
23rd), were told that the Council could not revoke what
all three Councils had voted. The Council of the Two
Hundred refused to recall the pastors. The Council
General (May 26th) ])y a unanimous vote repeated the
sentence of exile, and forbade the three pastors (Farel,
Calvin, and Coraut) to set foot on Genevan territory.
Driven from Geneva, Calvin would fain have betaken
himself to a quiet student life; but he was too well known and
too much valued to be left in the obscurity he longed for.
Strassburg claimed him to minister to the French refugees
who had settled within its protecting walls. He was
invited to attend the Protestant conference at Frankfurt ;
he was present at the union conferences at Hagenau, at
Worms, and at Eegensburg. There he met the more
celebrated German Protestant divines, who welcomed him
as they had done no one else from Switzerland. Calvin
put himself right with them theologically by signing at
once and without solicitation the Augsburg Confession,
and aided thereby the feeling of union among all Pro-
testants. He kindled in the breast of Melanchthon one
of those romantic friendships which the frail Frenchman,
with the pallid face, black hair, and piercing eyes, seemed
to evoke so easily. Luther himself appreciated his
theology even on his jealously guarded theory of the
Sacrament of the Holy Supper.
Meanwhile things were not going well in Geneva. Out-
wardly, there was not much difference. Pastors ministered
in the churches of the town, and the ordinary and ecclesias-
tical life went on as usual. The magistrates enforced the
Articles ; they condemned the Anabaptists, the Papists, all
infringements of the sumptuary and disciplinary laws of the
town. They compelled every householder to go to church.
Still the old life seemed to be gone. The Council and the
Syndics treated the new pastors as their servants, com-
pelled them to render strict obedience to all their decisions
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 125
in ecclesiastical matters, and considered religion as a
political affair. It is undoubted that the morals of the
town became worse, — so bad that the pastors of Bern wrote
a letter of expostulation to the pastors in Geneva,^ — and
the Lord's Supper seems to have been neglected. The
contests between parties within the city became almost
scandalous, and the independent existence of Geneva was
threatened.^
At the elections the Syndics failed to secure their re-
election. Men of more moderate views were chosen, and
from this date (Feb. 1539) the idea began to be mooted
that Geneva must ask Calvin to return. Private overtures
were made to him, but he refused. Then came letters from
the Council, begging him to come back and state his terms.
He kept silence. Lausanne and Neuchatel joined their
entreaties to those of Geneva. Calvin was not to be per-
suaded. His private letters reveal his whole mind. He
shuddered at returning to the turbulent city. He was not
sure that he was fit to take charge of the Church in Geneva.
He was in peace at Strassburg, minister to a congregation
of his own countrymen ; and the pastoral tie once formed
was not to be lightly broken ; yet there was an undercurrent
drawing him to the place where he first began the ministry
of the Word. At length he- wrote to the Council of
Geneva, putting all his difficulties and his longings before
them — neither accepting nor refusing. His immediate
duty called him to the conference at Worms.
The people of Geneva were not discouraged. On the
19th October, the Council of the Tvjo Himd red -pls^ced on
their register a declaration that every means must be taken
to secure the services of " Maystre Johan Calvinus," and on
the 22nd a worthy burgher and member of tlie Council of
the Two Hundred, Louis Dufour, was despatched to Strass-
burg with a letter from both the civic Councils, begging
Calvin to retuiii t^ his " old place " (prestine pl^^che), " seeing
^ Herminjard, Corresjjondance, etc. v. 139 ; Corpus RcfQrmatorur\
xxxviii. ii. 181.
2 Doumergue, Jean Cahiv., etc. ii. 681 jf.
126 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
our people desire you greatly," and promising that they
would do what they could to content him.^ Dufour got to
Strassburg only to find that Calvin had gone to Worms,
He presented his letters to the Council of the town, who
sent them on by an express {eques celeri cursu) ^ to Calvin
(Nov. 6th, 1540). Far from being uplifted at the genuine
desire to receive him back again to Geneva, Calvin was
terribly distressed. He took counsel with his friends at
Worms, and could scarcely place the case before them for
his sobs.^ The intolerable pain he had at the thought of
going back to Geneva on the one hand, and the idea that
Bucer might after all be right when he declared that
Calvin's duty to the Church Universal clearly pointed to
his return,* overmastered him completely. His friends, re-
specting his sufferings, advised him to postpone all decision
until again in Strassburg. Others who were not near him
kept urging him. Farel thundered at him {constern6 par tes
foudres).^ The pastors of Zurich wrote (April 5th 1541):
" You know that Geneva lies on the confines of France, of
Italy, and of Germany, and that there is great hope that the
Gospel may spread from it to the neighbouring cities, and
thus enlarge the ramparts {les hoidevards) of the kingdom
of Christ. — You know that the Apostle selected metropolitan
cities for his preaching centres, that the Gospel might be
spread throughout the surrounding towns." ^
Calvin was overcome. He consented to return to
Geneva, and entered the city still suffering from his repug-
nance to undertake work he was not at all sure that he
was fitted to do. Historians speak of a triumphal entry.
There may have been, though nothing could have been
more distasteful to Calvin at any time, and eminently so
^ Hegistres du Conseil, xxxiv. f., 483, 485, 490 (quoted in Doumergue,
Jean Calvin, ii. 700).
^ Herminjard, Correspcmdance des Heformateurs dans les pays de langue
frangaise (Geneva, 1866-93), vi. 365.
^ Corpus Heformatorum, xxxix. (xi.) 114.
^lbid.^.5i. ^Jbid.ii. 170.
^ Herminjard, Correspondancc, etc. vii. 77.
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 127
on this occasion, with the feelings he had. Contemporary
documents are silent. There is only the minute of the
Council, as formal as minutes usually are, relatiucr that
" Maystre Johan Calvin, ministre evangelique," is again in
charge of the Church in Geneva (Sept. 13th, 1541).^
Calvin was in Geneva for the second time, dragged there
both times unwillingly, his dream of a quiet scholar's life
completely shattered. The work that lay before him proved
to be almost as hard as he had foreseen it would be. The
common idea that from this second entry Calvin was master
within the city, is quite erroneous. Fourteen years were
spent in a hard struggle (1541-55); and if the remain-
ing nine years of his life can be called his period of triumph
iover opponents (1555-64), it must be remembered that
he was never able to see his ideas of an ecclesiastical organi-
sation wholly carried out in the city of his adoption. One
'must go to the Protestant Church of France to see Calvin's
idea completely realised.^
On- the day of his entry into Geneva (Sept. .13th,
1541) the Council resolved that a Constitution should be
given to the Church of the city, and a committee was formed,
consisting of Calvin, his colleagues in the ministry, and six
members of the Council, to prepare the draft. The work was
completed in twenty days, and ready for presentation. On
September 16th, however, it had been resolved that the
draft when prepared should be submitted for revision to
the Smaller Council, to the Council of Sixty, and finally to
the Council of Two Hundred. The old opposition at once
manifested itself within these Councils. There seem to
have been alterations, and at the last moment Calvin thought
that the Constitution would be made worthless for the pur-
pose of discipline and orderly ecclesiastical rule. In the end,
however, the drafted ordinances were adopted unanimously
by the Council of Two Hu7idred without serious alteration.
^ Registres du Conseil, xxxv. f., 324 (quoted in Doumergue, Jean Calvin,
etc. ii. 710).
^For the wonderful influence of Calvin on the French Reformation and
its causes, cf. below, pp. 153 ft".
128 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
The result was the famous Ecclesiastical Ordinances of
Geneva in their first form. They did not assume their
final form until 1561.^
When these Ordinances of 1541 are compared with the
principles of ecclesiastical government laid down in the
Institutio, with the Articles of 1537, and with the
Ordinances of 1561, it can be seen that Calvin must have
sacrificed a great deal in order to content the magistrates of
Geneva.
He had contended for the self-government of the Church,
especially in matters of discipline ; the principle runs all
through the chapters of the fourth book of the Institiitio.
The Ordinances give a certain show of autonomy, and yet the
whole authority really rests with the Councils. The dis-
cipline was exercised by the Consistory or session of Elders
(Anciens) ; but this Consistory was chosen by the Smaller
Council on the advice of the ministers, and was to include
two members of the Smaller Council, four from the Council
of Sixty, and six from the Council of Tivo Hundred, and
when they had been chosen they were to be presented to
the Council of Two Hundred for approval. When the Con-
sistory met, one of the four Syndics sat as president, hold-
ing his baton, the insignia of his magisterial office, in his
hand, which, as the revised Ordinances of 1561 very truly
said, " had more the appearance of civil authority than of
spiritual rule." The revised Ordinances forbade the presi-
dent to carry his baton when he presided in The Consistory, in
order to render obedience to the distinction which is '* clearly
shown in Holy Scripture to exist between the magistrate's
sword and authority and the superintendence which ought
to be in the Church " ; but the obedience to Holy Scripture
does not seem to have gone further than laying aside the
baton for the time. It appears also that the rule of con-
sulting the ministers in the appointments made to the
Consistory was not unfrequently omitted, and that it was
"^ Articles o{ YhTTi in the Corpus Reformatoruvi, xxxviii. i. (x. i.) 5-14 ;
Ordinances of 1541 ; ibid. pp. 15-30 ; Ordinances of 1561 ; ibid., pp.
91-124 ; Institution, iv. cc. i.-xii.
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 129
to all intents and purposes simply a committee of the
Councils, and anything but submissive to the pastors.^ The
Consistory had no power to inflict civil punishments on
delinquents. It could only admonish and warn. When it
deemed that chastisements were necessary, it had to report
to the Council, who sentenced. This was also done in order
to maintain the separation between the civil and ecclesias-
tical power ; but, in fact, it was a committee of the Council
that reported to the Council, and the distinction was really
illusory. This state of matters was quite repugnant to
Calvin's cherished idea, not only as laid down in the
Institution, but as seen at work in the Constitution of the
French Protestant Church, which was mainly his authorship.
"The magnificent, noble, and honourable Lords" of the
Council (such was their title) of this small town of 13,000
inhabitants deferred in words to the teachings of Calvin about
the distinction between the civil and the spiritual powers, but
in fact they retained the whole power of rule or discipline
in their own hands ; and we ought to see in the disciplinary
powers and punishments of the Consistory of Geneva, not
an exhibition of the working of a Church organised on the
principles of Calvin, but the ordinary procedure of the
Town Council of a mediaeval city. Their petty punishments
and their minute interference with private life are only
special instances of what was common to all municipal
rule in the sixteenth century.
Through that century we find a protest against the
mediaeval intrusion of the ecclesiastical power into
the realm of civil authority, with the inevitable re-
action which made the ecclesiastical a mere department
of national or civic administration. Zurich under Zwingh,
although it is usually taken as the extreme type of this
Erastian policy, as it came to- be called later, went no
further than 'Bern, Strassburg, or other places. The
Council of Geneva had legal precedent when they
insisted that the supreme -ecclesiastical power belonged
to them. The city had been an ecclesiastical principality.
Corpus ReforinaA.orum, xxxviii. i. 121, 122.
1
130 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
ruled in civil as well as in ecclesiastical things by its
Bishop, and the Council were legally the inheritors of the
Bishop's authority. This meant, among other things, that
the old laws against heresy, unless specially repealed,
remained on the Statute Book, and errors in doctrine
were reckoned to be of the nature of treasonable
things ; and this made heresies, or variations in religious
opinion from what the Statute Book had declared to
be the official view of truth, liable to civil pains and
penalties.
" Castellio's doubts as to the canonicity of the Song of
Songs and as to the received interpretation of Christ's
descent into Hades, Bolsec's criticism of predestination,
Gryet's suspected scepticism and possession of infidel books,
Serve tus' rationalism and anti-Trinitarian creed, were all
opinions judged to be criminal. . . . The heretic may be a
man of irreproachable character ; but if heresy be treason
against the State," ^
he was a criminal, and had to be punished for the
crime on the Statute Book. To say that Calvin burnt
Servetus, as is continually done, is to make one man re-
sponsible for a state of things which had lasted in western
Europe ever since the Emperor Theodosius declared that
all men were out of law who did not accept the Nicene
Creed in the form issued by Damasus of Eome. On the
other hand, to release Calvin from his share in that tragedy
and crime by denying that he sat among the judges of the
heretic, or to allege that Servetus was slain because he
conspired against the liberties of the city, is equally un-
reasonable. Calvin certainly believed that the execution
of the anti-Trinitarian was right. The Protestants of
Erance and of Switzerland in 1903 (Nov. 1st) erected
what they called a momtment expiatoire to the victim
of sixteenth century religious persecution, and placed
on it an inscription in which they acknowledged their
debt to the great Keformer, and at the same time
* Cambridge Modern History, ii. 375.
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 131
condemned his error, — surely the right attitude to
assume.^
Calvin did three things for Geneva, all of which went
far beyond its walls. He gave its Church a trained and
tested ministry, its homes an educated people who could
give a reason for their faith, and to the whole city an
heroic soul which enabled the little town to stand forth as
the Citadel and City of Eefuge for the oppressed Protestants
of Europe.
The earlier preachers of the Keformed faith had be^n
stray scholars, converted priests and monks, pious artisans,
and such like. They were for the most part heroic men
who did their work nobly. But some of them had no real
vocation for the position into which they had thrust them-
selves. They had been prompted by such ignoble motives
as discontent with their condition, the desire to marry or
to make legitimate irregular connections,^ or dislike to all
authority and wholesome restraints. They had brought
neither change of heart nor of conduct into their new
surroundings, and had become a source of danger and
scandal to the small Protestant communities.
The first ^part of the Ordinances was meant to put an
end to such a condition of things, and aimed at giving the
Eeformed Church a ministry more efticient than the old
priesthood, without claiming any specially priestly character.
^ On the one side of the stone is inscribed :
Le xxvii Octobre MDLIII
Mourut sur le bucher a Champel
Michel Seevet
de Villeneuve d'Aragon, n^ le xxix Septembre MDXI.
and on the other :
Fils respectueux et reconnaissants de Calvin notre gi-and reformateur,
mais condamnant une erreur qui fnt celle de son siecle et ferme-
ment attaches a la liberty de conscience selon les vrais principcs de
la Reformation et de I'^vaugile, nous avons 61eve ce monument
expiatoire. Le xxvii Octobre MCMIII.
2 Like Jacques Bernard, the Franciscan monk,' who was one of the pastors
in Geneva after the banishment of Calvin and Fare), who, "cum esset inter
Evangelii exordia, hostiliter repugnavit, donee Christum aliquando in uxoris
forma contcmplatus est."
132 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
The ministers were to be men who believed that they were
called by the voice of God speaking to the individual soul,
and this belief in a divine vocation was to be tested and
tried in a threefold way — by a searching examination, by
a call from their fellow-men in the Church, and by a solemn
institution to office.
The examination, which is expressly stated to be the
most important, was conducted by those who were already
in the office of the ministry. It concerned, first, the
knowledge which the candidate had of Holy Scripture, and
of his ability to make use of it for the edification of the
people ; and, second, his walk and conversation in so far
as they witnessed to his power to be an example as well as
a teacher. The candidate was then presented to the Smaller
Cou7icil. He was next required to preach before the
people, who were invited to say whether his ministrations
were likely to be for edification. These three tests passed,
he was then to be solemnly set apart by the laying on of
the hands of ministers, according to the usage of the ancient
Church. His examination and testing did not end with
his ordination. All the ministers of the city were com-
manded to meet once a week for the discussion of the
Scriptures, and at these meetings it was the duty of every
one, even the least important, to bring forward any cause
of complaint he believed to exist against any of his brethren,
whether of doctrine, or of morals, or of inefficient discharge
of the duties entrusted to his care. The pastors who
worked in the villages were ordered to attend as often as
they could, and none of them were permitted to be absent
beyond one month. If the meeting of ministers failed to
agree on any matter brought before them, they were
enjoined to call in the Elders to assist them ; and a final
appeal was always allowed to the Signory, or civil authority.
The same rigid supervision was extended to the whole
people, and in the visitations for this purpose Elders were
always associated with ministers.^ Every member of the
^ Corpus Refor'niatorum, xxxviii. i. (x. i.) 17-20, 45-48, 55-58, 93-99
116-118. -
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 133
little republic, surrounded by so many and powerful
enemies, was meant to be a soldier trained for spiritual as
for temporal warfare. Calvin added a spiritual side to
the military training which preserved the independence of
the little mediaeval city republics.
He was unwearied in his exertions to make Geneva
an enlightened town. His educational policy adopted by
the Councils was stated in a series of famous regulations
for the management of the schools and College of the city.^
He sought out and presented to the Council the most
noted' scholars he could attract to Geneva. Mathurin
Cordier, the ablest preceptor that France had produced in his
generation ; Beza, its most illustrious Humanist ; Castellio
and Saunier, were all teachers in the city. The fame of
its schools attracted almost as many as persecution drove
to take refuge within its walls. The religious instruction
of the young was carefully attended to. Calvin's earlier
Catechism was revised, and made more suitable for the
young; and the children were so w^ell grounded that it
became a common saying that a boy of Geneva could give
an answer for his faith as ably as a " doctor of the
Sorbonne." But what Geneva excelled in was its training
for the ministry and other learned professions. Men with
the passion of learning in their blood came from all lands
— from Italy, Spain, England, Scotland,' even from Eussia,
and, above all, from France. Pastors educated in Geneva,
taught by the most distinguished scholars of the day, who
had gained the art of ruling others in having learned how
to command themselves, went forth from its schools to
become the ministers of the struggling Protestants in the
Netherlands, in England, in Scotland, in the Pihine
Provinces, and, above all, in France. They were wise, in-
defatigable, fearless, ready to give. their lives for their work,
extorting praise from unwilling mouths, as modest, saintly,
" with the name of Jesus ever on their lips " and His Spirit
in their hearts. What they did for France and other
countries must be told elsewhere.
^ Corpus Rcformatorum,, xxxviii. i. (x. i ) 65-90.
134 THE REFORMATION IN GENEVA UNDER CALVIN
The once disorderly city, a prey to its own internal
factions, became the citadel of the Eeformation, defying
the threats of Eomanist France and Savoy, and opening its
gates to tlie persecuted of all lands. It continued to be
so for generations, and the victims of the dragonnades of
Louis XIV. received the welcome and protection accorded
to the sufferers under the Valois in the sixteenth century.
What it did for them may he best told in the words of a
refugee :
" On the next day, a Sunday, we reached a small village
on a hill about a league from Geneva, from which we
could see that city with a joy which could only be compared
to the gladness with which the Israelites beheld the Land
of Canaan. It was midday when we reached the village,
and so great was our eagerness to be as soon as possible
within the city which we looked on as our Jerusalem, that
we did not wish to stay even for food. But our conductor
informed us that on the Sunday the gates of Geneva were
never opened until after divine service, that is, until after
four o'clock. We had therefore to remain in the village
until about that hour, when we mounted our horses again.
When we drew near to the town we saw a large number of
people coming out. Our guide was surprised, and the
more so when, arriving at the Plain-Palais, a quarter of a
league from the town, we saw coming to meet us, three
carriages escorted by halberdiers and followed by an immense
crowd of people of both sexes and of every age. As soon as
we were seen, a servant of the Magistracy approached us
and prayed us to dismount to salute respectfully ' Their
Excellencies of Geneva,' who had come to meet us and to
bid us welcome. We obeyed. The three carriages having
drawn near, there alighted from each a magistrate and a
minister, who embraced us with tears of joy and with
praises of our constancy and endurance far greater than we
merited. . . . Their Excellencies then permitted the people
to approach, and there followed a spectacle more touching
than imagination could picture. Several of the inhabitants
of Geneva had relatives suffering in the French galleys
(from which we had been delivered), and these good people
did not know whether any of them might be among our
company. So one heard a confused noise, ' My son so and
so, my husband, my brother, are you there ? ' One can
CALVIN WITH FAREL IN GENEVA 135
imagine what embracings welcomed any of our troop who
could answer. All this crowd of people threw itself on our
necks with inexpressible transports of joy, praising and
magnifying tlie Lord for the manifestation of His grace in .
our favour; and when Their Excellencies asked us to get
on horseback again to enter the city, we were scarcely able
to obey, so impossible did it seem to detach ourselves from
the arms of these pious and zealous brethren, who seemed
afraid to lose sight of us. At last we remounted and
followed Their Excellencies, who conducted us into the
city as in triumph. A magnificent building had been
erected in Geneva to lodge citizens who had fallen into
poverty. It had just been finished and furnished, and no
one had yet lived in it. Their Excellencies thought it
could have no better dedication than to serve as' our
habitation. They conducted us there, and we were soon on
foot in a spacious court. The crowd of people rushed in
after us. Those who had found relatives in our company
begged Their Excellencies to permit them to take them to
their houses — a request willingly granted. M. Bosquet,
one of us, had a mother and two sisters in Geneva, and
they had come to claim him. As he was my intimate
friend, he begged Their Excellencies to permit him to take
me along with him, and they willingly granted his request.
Fired by this example, all the burghers, men and women,
asked Their Excellencies to allow them the same favour of
lodging these dear brethren in their own houses. Their
Excellencies having permitted some . to do this, a holy
jealousy took possession of the others, who laniented and
bewailed themselves, saying that they could not be looked
on as good and loyal citizens if they were refused the same
favour ; so Their Excellencies had to give way, and not one
of us was left in the Maison Frangaise, for so they had
called the magnificent building." ^
The narrative is that of a Protestant condemned to
the galleys under Louis xiv. ; but it may serve as a
picture of how Geneva acted in the sixteenth century
when the small city of 13,000 souls received and pro-
tected nearly 6000 refugees driven- from many different
lands for their religion.
1 Memoires d'un protestant condamiU aux galeres de France pour cause de
religim, ecrits par lui-nvCiJie {1757, repub. 1866), pp. 404-407.
CHAPTER IV.
THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.^
§ 1. Marguerite d'Angouleme and the ''group of Meaux."
Perhaps no one so thoroughly represents the sentiments
which inspired the beginnings of the movement for Eeforma-
tion in France as Marguerite d'Angouleme,^ the sister of
^ Sources : Theodore de Beze (Beza), Histoire EccUsiastique des ^glises
reformees au Royaume de France (ed. by G. Baum and E. Cunitz, Paris,
1883-89) ; J. Crespin, Histoire des martyrs persecutez et mis a mort pour la
v4rit6 (ed. by Benoist, Toulouse, 1885-87) ; Herminjard, Correspandance des
Reformateurs dans les pays de langue fraiigaise, 9 vols. (Geneva, 1878-91) ;
Calvin's Letters, Corpus Reformatorum, vols, xxxviii. ii.-XLViii. (Bruns-
wick, 1872, etc.) ; Bonnet, Lettres de Jean. Calvin, 2 vols. (Paris, 1854).
Later Books : E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, 3 vols, (published Lausanne,
1899-1905) ; H. M. Baird, History of the Rise of the Huguenots (London,
1880), and Theodore Beza (New York, 1899) ; Lavisse, Histoire de France^
V. i. pp. 339 ff. ; ii. 183 fF. ; vi. i. ii. ; Hamilton, "Paris under the Valois
Kings " {Ihg. Hist. Revieto, 1886, pp. 260-70).
^ Marguerite was born at Angouleme on April 11th, 1492 ; married the
feeble Duke of Alen9on in 1509 ; was a widow in 1525 ; married Henri
dAlbret, King of Navarre, in 1527 ; died in 1549. Her only child was
Jeanne d'Albret, the heroic mother of Henry of Navarre, who became
Henri iv. of France. When she Avas the Duchess of Alencon, her court at
Bourges was a centre for the Humanists and Reformers of France ; when
she became the Queen of Navarre, her castle at N^rac was a haven for all
persecuted Protestants. The literature about Marguerite is very extensive :
it is perhaps sufficient to mention — Genin, Lettres de Marguerite d' A ngoulevic,
reine de Navarre (published by the Society de l' Histoire de France, 1841-42) ;
Les idees religieuses de Marguerite de Navarre, d'aupres son oeuvre poetique ;
A. Lefranc, Les dernieres jwesies de, Marguerite de Navarre (Paris, 1896) ;
Becker, " Marguerite de Navarre, duchesse d Alencon et Guillaume Briconnet,
evenue de Meaux, d'apres leur correspondance manuscrite, 1521-24 " (in the
Bulletin de la Societe de V Histoire du Protestantisme franqaise, xlix. (Paris,
1890) J Darmesteter, Margaret of Angoicltme, Queen of Natiwrre (London,
MARGUERITE AND THE "GROUP OF MEAUX " 187
King Francis i. A study of her letters and of her
writings — the latter being for the most part in verse — is
almost essential for a true knowledge of the aspirations of
the noblest minds of her generation. Not that she
possessed creative energy or was herself a thinker of any
originality, but her soul, like some clear sensitive mirror,
received and reflected the most tremulous throb of the
intellectual and religious movements around her. She
had, like many ladies of that age, devoted herself to the
New Learning. She had mastered Latin, Italian, and
Spanish in her girlhood, and later she acquired Greek and
even Hebrew, in order to study the Scriptures in their
original tongues. In her the French Eenaissance of the end
of the fifteenth was prolonged throughout the first half of
the' sixteenth century. She was all sentiment and affection,
full of that gentle courage which soft feminine enthusiasm
gives, and to her brother and . more masculine mother
(Louise of Savoy) ^ she was a being to be protected
against the consequences of her own tender daring.
Contemporary writers of all parties, save the more bitter
defenders of the prevalent Scholastic Theology, have
something good to say about the pure, bright, ecstatic
Queen of Navarre. One calls her the " violet in the
royal garden," and says that she unconsciously gathered
around her all the better spirits in France, as, the wild
thyme attracts the bees.
Marsiglio Ficino had taught her .to drink from the
well of Christian Platonism ; ^ and this mysticism, which
had Httle to do with dogma, which allied itself naturally
with the poetical sides of philosophy and morals which
suggested great if indefinite thoughts about God, — Ic Tout,
le Seul Mcessaire, la Seule Bonte, — the human soul and the
1886) ; Lavisse, Eistoire de France, v. i. "; Herminjard, Correspondance, etc.,
vol. i., which contains sixteen letters written by her, and twelve addressed
to her.
1 Louise de Savoie, Journal, 1476-1522 (in Michaud et Poujoulat,
Collection, etc, v.).
2 Lefranc, "Marguerite de Navarre et le platonismc dc la Renaissance"
(vols. Iviii. lix. Bihliothequc de Vtlcolc des Chartcs, 1897-98).
138 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
intimate union between the two, was perhaps the abiding
part of her ever-enlarging religious experience. Nicholas
of Cusa, who tried to combine the old Scholastic with the
new thoughts of the Kenaissance, taught her much which
she never unlearnt. She studied the Holy Scriptures
carefully for herself, and was never weary of discussing
with others the meaning of passages which seemed to be
difficult. She listened eagerly to the preaching of Lefevre
and Eoussel, and carried on a long private correspondence
with BriQonnet, being passionately desirous, she said, to
learn " the way of salvation." ^ Both Luther and Calvin
made a strong impression upon her, but their schemes of
theology never attracted nor subjugated her intelligence.
Her sympathies were drawn forth by their disdain of
Scholastic Theology, by their denial of the supernatural
powers of the priesthood, by their proclamation of the
power and of the love of God, and by their conception
that faith unites man with God — by all in their teaching
which would assimilate with the Christian mysticism to
which she had given herself with all her soul. When
her religious poems are studied, it will be found that she
dwells on the infinite power of God, the mystical absorp-
tion of the human life within the divine, and praises pas-
sionately self-sacrifice and disdain of all earthly pleasures.
She extols the Lord as the one and only Saviour and
Intercessor. She contrasts, as Luther was accustomed to
do, the Law which searches, tries, and punishes, with the
Gospel which pardons the sinner for the sake of Christ
and of the work which He finished on the Cross. She
looks forward with eager hope to a world redeemed and
regenerated through the Evangel of Jesus Christ. She
insists on justification by faith, on the impossibility of
salvation by works, on predestination in the sense of
absolute dependence on God in the last resort. Works
are good, but no one is saved by works ; salvation comes
by grace, and " is the gift of the Most High God." She
calls the Virgin the most blessed among women, because
^ Herminjard, Correspondancc, etc. i. 67.
MARGUERITE AND THE "GROUP OF MEAUX " 139
she had been chosen to be the mother of the " Sovereign
o
Saviour," but refused her any higher place ; and in her
devotions she introduced an invocation of Our Lord
instead of the Salve Regina. This way of thinking about
the Blessed Virgin, combined with her indifference to the
Saints and to the Mass, and her undisguised contempt
for the more superstitious ecclesiastical ceremonies, were
the chief reasons for the strong attacks made on Marguerite
by the Faculty of Theology (the Sorbonne) of Paris.
She cannot be called a Protestant, but she had broken
completely with mediaeval modes of religious life and
thought.
Marguerite's letters contain such graphic glimpses, that
it is possible to see her daily life, whether at Bourges,
where she held her Court as the Duchess of Alen^ou, or at
Nerac, where she dwelt as the Queen of Navarre. Every
hour was occupied, and was lived in the midst of company.
Her Contes and her poetry were for the most part written
in her litter when she was travelling from one place to
another. Her " Household " was large even for the times.
No less than one hundred and two persons — ladies, secre-
taries, almoners, physicians, etc. — made her Court ; and
frequently many visitors also were present. The whole
" Household," with the visitors, met together every forenoon
in one of the halls of the Palace, a room " well- paved and
hung with tapestry," and there the Princess commonly
proposed some text of Scripture for .discussion. It was
generally a passage which seemed obscure to Marguerite ;
for example, " The meek shall inherit the earth." All
were invited to make suggestions about its meaning. Tlie
hostess was learned, and no one scrupled to quote the
Scriptures in their original languages, or to adduce the
opinions of such earlier Fathers as Augustine, Jerome,
Chrysostom, or the Gregories. If it surprises us to find
one or other of the twenty valets de- chamhrc, who were
not menials and were privileged to be present, familiar
with theology, and able to quote Greek and even Hebrew,
it must not be fbniotten tliat Marf]ruerite's xaJcts de chambre
140 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
included distinguished Humanists and Eeformers, to whom
she extended the protective privilege of being enrolled in
her " Household." When the weather permitted, the whole
company went for a stroll in the park after the discussion,
and then seated themselves near a " pleasant fountain " on
the turf, " so soft and delicate that they needed neither
carpet nor cushions." ^ There one of the ladies-in-waiting
(thirty dames or demoiselles belonged to the " Household ")
read aloud a tale from the Heptameron, not forgetting the
improving conversation which concludes each story. This
gave rise to an animated talk, after which they returned to
the Palace. In the evening the " Household " assembled
again in a hall, fitted as a simple theatre, to witness one of
the Comedies or Pastorals which the Queen delighted to
write, and in which, through a medium as strange as the
Oontes, she inculcated her mystical Christianity, and gave
expression to her longings for a reformation in the Church
and society. Her Court was the precursor of the salons
which in a later age exercised such a powerful influence on
French political, literary, and social life.
Marguerite is chiefly remembered as the author of the
Heptameron, which modern sentiment cannot help regarding
as a collection of scandalous, not to say licentious, tales.
The incongruity, as it appears to us, of making such tales
the vehicle of moral and even of evangelical instruction,
causes us frequently to forget the conversations which
follow the stories — conversations which generally inculcate
moral truths, and sometimes wander round the evangelical
thought that man's salvation and all the fruits of holy
living rest on the finished work of Christ, the only
Saviour. " Voilct, Mesdames, comme la foy du hon Comte ne
fut vaiTWue par signes ne par miracles exUrieurs, sachant tres
hien que nous n'avons cpiCun Sauveur, lequel en disant Con-
summatum est, a monstrS qu'il ne laissoit point a un autre
successeur pour faire notre salut." ^ So different was the
sentiment of the sixteenth from that of the twentieth
^ Heptameron, Preface.
^ Ibit, Nouvelle xxxiii.
MARGUERITE AND THE "GROUP OF MEAUX 141
century, that Jeanne d'Albret, puritan as she undoubtedly
was, took pains that a scrupulously exact edition of her
mother's Contes should be printed and published, for all to
read and profit by.
The Eeformers with whom Marguerite was chiefly
associated were called the " group of Meaux." " Guillaunie
Bri^onnet,^ Bishop of Meaux, who earnestly desired reform
but dreaded revolution, had gathered round him a band of
scholars whose idea was a reformation of the Church by the
Church, in the Church, and with the Church. They were
the heirs of the aspirations of the great conciliar leaders of
the fifteenth century, such as Gerson, deeply religious men,
who longed for a genuine revival of faith and love. They
hoped to reconcile the great truths of Christian dogma with
the New Learning, and at once to enlarge the sphere of
Christian intelligence, and to impregnate Humanism with
Christian morality.
The man who inspired the movement and defined its
aims — " to preach Christ from the sources " — was Jacques
Lefevre d'Etaples (Stapulensis).^ He had been a distin-
guished Humanist, and in 1507 had resolved to consecrate
his learning to a study of the Holy Scriptures. The first
fruit of this resolve was a new Latin translation of the
Epistles of St. Paul (1512), in which a revised version of
the Vulgate was published along with tlie ti^ditional text.
In his notes he anticipated two of Luther's ideas — that
works have no merit apart from the -grace of God, and
that while there is a Eeal Presence of Christ in the
Sacrament of the Supper, there is no transn'l)stantiation.
The Eeformers of Meaux believed tliat the Holy Scriptures
^ Briconnet belonged to an illustrious family. He was born in 1470,
destined for the Church, was Archdeacon of Rheims, Bishop of Lodeve in
1504, 1507 got the rich Abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres at Paris, and became
Bishop of Meaux in 1516. He at once began to reform his diocese ; compelled
his cures to reside in their parishes ; divided the dfocese into thirty-two dis-
tricts, and sent to each of them a preaclier for part of tlie year.
2 Cf. K. H.Graf, "Jacobus Faber Stapulensis," in the Zcitschrift fiir die
historische theologie for 1852, 1-86; Doumergue, Jean Calvin, i. 79-112'
Herminjard, Correspondance, i. 3 ».
142 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
should be in the hands of the Christian people, and Lef^vro
took Jean de Eely's version of the Bible, — itself a revision
of an old thirteenth century French translation, — revised
it, published the Gospels in June 1523, and the whole
of the New Testament before the end of the year. The
Old Testament followed in 1525. The book was eagerly
welcomed by Marguerite, and became widely known and
read througrhout France. The Princess was able to write
to Briqonnet that her brother and mother were interested
in the spread of the Holy Scriptures, and in the hope of a
reform of the Church.^
Neither Lefevre nor Briqonnet was the man to lead a
Keformation. The Bishop was timid, and feared the
" tumult " ; and Lefevre, like Marguerite, was a Christian
mystic,^ with all the mystic's dislike to change in outward
and fixed institutions. More radical ideas were entering
France from without. The name of Luther was known as
early as 1518, and by 1520, contemporary letters tell us
that his books were selling by the hundred, and that all
thinking men were studying his opinions.^ The ideas of
Zwingli were also known, and appeared more acceptable to
the advanced thinkers in France. Some members of the
group of Meaux began to reconsider their position. The
Pope's Bull excommunicating Luther in 1520, the result
of the Diet of Worms in 1521, and the declaration of the
Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris (the
Sorbonne) against the opinions of Luther, and their vindica-
tion of the authority of Aristotle and Scholastic Theology
made it apparent that even modest reforms would not be
tolerated by the Church as it then existed. The Parlement
* Herminjard, Correspondance, i. 78, 84, 85 n.
* It does not seem to be generally known that Lefevre travelled to Germany
in search of manuscripts of some of the earlier mystical writers, and that he
published in 1513 the first printed edition of Hildegard of Bingen's Liber
Quoscivias (Peltzer, Deutsche Mystik und deutsche Kunst (Strassburg, 1899),
p. 35), under the title Liber trium virorum et trutm spirUualium, virginum
(Paris, 1513).
^ Herminjard, Correspondance, i. 37 w., 47, 48 w., 63 and w., 64,
etc.
MARGUERITE AND THE "GROUP OF MEAUX " 143
of Paris (August 1521) ordered Luther's books to be given
up.^
Lefevre did not falter. He remained what he had
been — a man on the threshold of a new era who refused
to enter it. One of his fellow-preachers retracted his
opinions, and began to write against his leader. The
young and fiery Guillaume Farel boldly adopted the views
of the Swiss Eeformers. Briconnet temporised. He forbade
the preaching of Lutheran doctrine within his diocese,
and the circulation of the Eeformer's writings ; but he
continued to protect Lefevre, and remained true to his
teaching.-
The energetic action of the Sorbonne and of the Parle-
ment of Paris showed the obstacles which lay in the path
of a peaceful Eeformation. The library of Louis de Berquin
was seized and condemned (June 16th, 1523), and several
of his books burnt in front of Notre Dame by the order of
Parleimnt (August 8th). Berquin himself was saved by
the interposition of the King.^ In March 15 25-, Jean
Leclerc, a wool-carder, was whipt and branded in Paris ;
and six months later was burnt at IVIetz for alleged out-
rages on objects of reverence. The Government had to
come to some decision about the religious question.
Marguerite could write that her mother and her
brother were " more than ever well disposed towards the
reformation of the Church " ; * but neither of them had
her strong religious sentiment, and policy rather than con-
viction invariably swayed their action. The Eeformation
promoted by Lefevre and believed in by Marguerite was
at once too moderate and too exacting for Francis i. It
could never be a basis for an alliance with the growing
Protestantism of Germany, and it demanded a purity of
individual life ill-suited either with the personal habits of
* Journal (Vun Bourgeois de Paris sous le regne de Francois I. 16 15-1686
(Paris, 1854), p. 104.
^ Herminjard, Correspondancc, i. 153^.
^ Journal d'un Bourgeois, etc. p. 169.
* Herminjard, Correspondance, i. 84, 10f> ; cf. 85 n.
144 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
the King or with the manners of the French Court. It is
therefore not to be wondered that the policy of the
Government of Francis i. wavered between a negligent pro-
tection and a stern repression of the French Eeformers.
§ 2. Attempts to re-press the Movement for Reform.
The years 1523-26 were full of troubles for France.
The Italian war had been unsuccessful. Provence had
been invaded. Francis i. had been totally defeated and
taken prisoner at Pavia. Dangers of various kinds within
France had also confronted the Government. Bands of
marauders — les aventiiriers ^ — had pillaged numerous dis-
tricts ; and so many conflagrations had taken place that
people believed they were caused by emissaries of the
public enemies of France. Louise of Savoy, the Queen-
Mother, and Eegent during her son*s captivity in Madrid,
had found it necessary to conciliate the formidable powers
of the Parlement of Paris and of the Sorbonne. Measures
were taken to suppress the printing of Lutheran and heret-
ical books, and the Parlement appointed a commission to
discover, try, and punish heretics. The result was a some-
what ineffective persecution.^ The preachers of Meaux had
to take refuge in Strassburg, and Lefevre's translation of
the Scriptures was publicly burnt.
When the King returned from his imprisonment at
Madrid (March 1525), he seemed to take the side of the
Reformers. The Meaux preachers came back to France,
and Lefevre himself was made the tutor to the King's
youngest son. In 1528—29 the great French Council of
Sens met to consider the state of the Church. It reaftirmed
most of the mediaeval positions, and, in opposition to the
teachings of 'Protestants, declared the unity, infallibility,
and visibility of the Church, the authority of Councils,
^ The depredations of those bands of brigands are frequently referred to
in the Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris, pp. 119, 159, 166, 176, 185, 201,
249, 257, 402, 196.
- Cf. Journal d'un Bourgeois, etc. p. 276.
ATTEMPTS TO REPRESS THE MOVEMENT 145
the right of the Church to make canonical regulations, fasts,
the celibacy of priests, the seven sacraments, the Mass,
purgatory, the veneration of saints, the worship of images,
and the Scholastic doctrines of free will and faith and
works. It called on civil rulers to execute the censures
of the Church on heretics and schismatics.- It also
published a series of reforms necessary — most of which
were already contained in the canon law.
While the Council was sitting, the Eomanists of France
were startled with the news that a statue of the Blessed
Virgin had been beheaded and otherwise mutilated. It
was the first manifestation of the revolutionary spirit of
the Eeformation in France. The King was furious. He
caused a new statue to be made in silver, and crave his
sanction to the renewal of the persecutions (May 31st,
1528). Four years later his policy altered. He desired
alliances with the English and German Protestants ; one
of the Reformers of Meaux preached in the Louvre durino-
Lent (1533), and some doctors of the Sorbonne-, who
accused the King and Queen of Navarre of heresy, were
banished from Paris. In spite of the ferment caused by
the Evangelical address of Nicolas Cop, and the flight of
Cop and of Calvin, the real author of the address, the King
still seemed to favour reform. Evangelical sermons were
again preached in the Louvre, and the King spoke of a
conference on the state of religion within France.
The affair of the Placards caused another storm. On
the morning of Oct. 18th, 1534, the citizens of Paris found
that broadsides or placards, attacking in very strong lan-
guage the ceremonv of the Mass, had been affixed to the
walls of the principal streets. ThQ^Q placards affirmed that
the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross was perfect and
unique, and therefore could never be repeated ; that it was
sheer idolatry to say that the corporeal presence of Christ
was enclosed within the wafer, " a man- of twenty or thirty
years in a morsel of paste " ; that transubstantiation was a
gross error ; that the Mass had been perverted from its
true meaning, which is to be a memorial of the sacrifice
146 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
and death of our Lord ; and that the solemn ceremony had
become a time " of bell-ringings, shoutings, singing, waving
of lamps and swinging of incense pots, after the fashion
of sorcerers." The violence of language was extreme.
" The Pope and all his vermin of cardinals, of bishops, of
priests, of monks and other hypocrites, sayers of the Mass,
and all those who consent thereto," were liars and blas-
phemers. The author of this broadside was a certain
Antoine Marcourt, who had fled from France and taken
refuge in Neuchatel. The audacity of the men who had
posted the placards in Paris and in other towns, — Orleans,
Blois, Amboise, — and had even fixed one on the door of
the King's bedchamber, helped to rouse the Eomanists to
frenzy. The Parlement and the University demanded
loudly that extreme measures should be taken to crush the
heretics ; ^ and everywhere expiatory processions were
formed to protest against the sacrilege. The King himself
and the great nobles of the Court took part in one in
January ,2 and during that month more than thirty-five
Lutherans were arrested, tried, and burnt. Several well-
known Frenchmen (seventy-three at least), among them
Clement Marot and Mathurin Cordier, fled the country, and
their possessions were confiscated.
After this outburst of persecution the King's policy
again changed. He was once more anxious for an alliance
with the Protestants of Germany. An amnesty was pro-
claimed for all save the " Sacramentarians," i.e. the followers
of Zwingli. A few of the exiled Frenchmen returned,
among them Clement Marot. The Chancellor of France,
Antoine du Bourg, went the length of inviting the German
theologians to come to France for the purpose of sharing in
a religious conference, and adhered to his proposal in spite
^Journal d\L% Bourgeois, etc.: "Fut sonn^ par deux trompettes et crie
au Palays sur la pierre de marbre, que s'il y avoit personne qui sceut
enseigner eeluy ou ceulx qui avoient iische les dietz placars, en revelant en
certitude, il leur seroit donne cent escus par la cour" (p. 442).
2 Ihid. pp. 442-444. The Dauphin, the Dukes of Orleans and Angouleme,
and a young German, Prince de Vendome, carried the four batons supporting
"un beau ciel " over the Host.
ATTEMPTS TO REPRESS THE MOVEMENT 147
of the protests of tlie Sorbonne. But nothing came of
it. The German Protestant theologians refused to rislc
themselves on French soil ; and the exiled Frenchmen
mistrusted the King and his Chancellor. The amnesty,
however, deserves remark, because it called forth the letter
of Calvin to Francis I. which forms the *' dedication " or
preface to his CIi7^istian Institution.
The work of repression was resumed with increased
severity. Eoyal edicts and mandates urging the extirpa-
tion of heresy followed each other in rapid succession —
Edict to the Farlement of Toulouse (Dec. 16th, 1538),
to the Parlements of Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Eouen (June
24th, 1539); a general edict issued from Fontainebleau
(June 1st, 1540); an edict to the Farlement of Toulouse
(Aug. 29th, 1542); mandats to the Parlements of Paris,
Bordeaux, Dijon, Grenoble, and Eouen (Aug. 30th, 1542).
The general Edict of Fontainebleau was one of exceptional
severity. It was intended to introduce a more summary
procedure in heresy trials, and enjoined officials to proceed
against all persons tainted with heresy, even against
ecclesiastics or those who had the " benefit of clergy " ; the
right of appeal was denied to those suspected ; negligent
judges were threatened with the King's displeasure ; and the
ecclesiastical courts were urged to show greater zeal, and tu
take advantage of the powers given to the civil courts.
" Every loyal subject," the edict said, " must denounce
heretics, and employ all means to root them out, just as all
men are bound to run to help to extinguish a public confla-
gration." This edict, slightly modified by the Parlcment
of Paris (July 1543) by enlarging the powers of the ecclesi-
astical courts, remained in force in France for the nine
following years. Yet in spite of its thorough iiess, succeeding
edicts and mandats declare that heresy was making rapid
progress in France.
The Sorbonne and the Parlements (especially those of
Paris and Aix) urged on the persecution of the "Lutherans."
The former drafted a series of twenty-five articles (a refuta-
tion of the 1541 edition of Calvin's Institution), which were-
148 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
meant to assert concisely the dogma of the Church, and to
deny whatever the Eeformers taught prejudicial to the
doctrines and practices of the mediaeval Church. These
articles were approved by the King and his Privy Council,
who ordered them to be published throughout the whole
kingdom, and gave instructions to deal with all who
preached or taught anything contrary or repugnant to
them. This ordinance was at once registered by the Parle-
ment of Paris. Thus all the powers of the realm committed
themselves to a struggle to extirpate the Eeformed teaching,
and were armed with a test which was at once clear and
comprehensive. Not content with this, the Sorbonne began
a list of prohibited books (1542—43) — a list containing the
works of Calvin, Luther, Melanchthon, Clement Marot, and
the translations of scripture edited by Eobert Estienne,
and the Farlement issued a severe ordinance against all Pro-
testant propaganda by means of printing or the selling of
books (July 1542).
These various ordinances for the extirpation of heresy
were applied promptly and rigorously, and the fir^s of
persecution were soon kindled all over France. The place
Maubert was the scene of the martyrdoms in Paris.
There were no great auto-da-fis, but continual mention is
made of burning two or three martyrs at once. Two
acts of persecution cast a dark stain on the last years of
Francis I. — the slaughter of the Waldenses of the Durance
in 1545, and the martyrdom of the " fourteen of Meaux."
A portion of Provence, skirting the Durance where
that river is about to flow into the Ehone, had been
almost depopulated in the fourteenth century, and the land-
owners had invited peasants from the Alps to settle within
their territories. The incomers were Waldenses ; their
religion was guaranteed protection, and their industry and
thrift soon covered the desolate region with fertile farms.
When the Eeformation movement had established itself in
Germany and Switzerland, these villagers were greatly in-
terested. They drew up a brief statement of what they
believed, and seut it to the leading Eeformers, accompanied
ATTEMPTS TO REPRESS THE MOVEMENT 149
by a number of questions on matters of religion. They re-
ceived long answers from Bucer and from Oecolampadius,
and, having met in conference (Sept. 1532) at Angroo-ne in
Piedmont, they drafted a simple confession of faith based
on the replies of the Eeformers to their questions. It was
natural that they should view the progress of the Eeforma-
tion within France with interest, and that they should con-
tribute 500 crowns to defray the expense of printing a new
translation of the Scriptures into French by Robert Olivetan.
Freedom to practise their religion had been granted for two
centuries to the inhabitants of the thirty Waldensian villages,
and they conceived that in exhibiting their sympathy with
French Protestantism they were acting within their ancient
rights. Jean de Roma, Inquisitor for Provence, thought
otherwise. In 1532 he began to exhort the villagers to
abjure their opinions ; and, finding his entreaties without
effect, he set on foot a severe persecution. The Waldenses
appealed to the King, who sent a commission to inquire into
the matter, with the result that Jean de Roma was com-
pelled to flee the country.
The persecution was renewed in 1535 by the Archbishop
and Parlement of Aix, who cited seventeen of the people of
Merindol, one of the villages, before them on a charge of
heresy. When they failed to appear, - the Parlement pub-
lished (Nov. 18th, 1540) the celebrated Arret de ^ Merindol,
which sentenced the seventeen to.be burnt at the stake.
The Waldenses again appealed to the -King, who pardoned
the seventeen on the condition that they should abjure their
heresy within three months (Feb. 8th, 1541).' There was
a second appeal to the King, who again protected the
Waldenses; but during the later months of 1541 the Parle-
ment of Aix sent to His Majesty the false information that
the people of Merindol were ■ in open insurrection, and
were threatening to sack" the town of Marseilles. Upon
this, Francis, urged thereto by Cardinal' de Tournon, recalled
his protection, and ordered all the Waldenses to be exter-
minated (Jan. 1st, 1545). An army was stealthily
organised, and during seven weeks of slaughter, amid all
150 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
the accompaniments of treachery and brutality, twenty-two
of the thirty Waldensian villages were utterly destroyed,
between three and four thousand men and women were
slain, and seven hundred men sent to the galleys. Those
who escaped took refuge in Switzerland.^
The persecution at Meaux (1546) was more limited in
extent, but was accompanied by such tortures that it formed
a fitting introduction to the severities of the reign of
Henri ii.
The Eeformed at Meaux had organised themselves into
a congregation modelled on that of the French refugees in
Strassburg. They had chosen Pierre Leclerc to be their
pastor, and one of their number, Etienne Mangin, gave his
house for the meetings of the congregation. The authorities
heard of the meetings, and on Sept. 8th, 1546, a sudden
visit was made to the house, and sixty-one persons were
arrested and brought before the Parlement of Paris. Their
special crime was that they had engaged in the celebration
of the Lord's Supper. The sentence of the Court declared
that the Bishop of Meaux had shown culpable negligence
in permitting such meetings ; that the evidence indicated
that there were numbers of " Lutherans " and heretics in
Meaux besides those brought before it, and that all such
were to be sought out ; that all books in the town which
concerned the Christian religion were to be deposited in the
record-office within eight days ; that special sermons were
to be delivered and expiatory processions organised ; and
that the house of Etienne Mangin was to be razed to the
ground, and a chapel in honour of the Holy Sacrament
erected on the site. It condemned fourteen of the accused to
be burnt alive, after having suffered the severest tortures
which the law permitted ; five to be hung up by the armpits
to witness the execution, and then to be scourged and im-
prisoned ; others to witness the execution with cords round
their necks and with their heads bare, to ask pardon for their
crime, to take part in an expiatory procession, and to listen
^ Bulletin de la SocieU dc VUistoirc du Protestantisme fran^ais for 1858,
pp. 166#.
r;
CHANGE IN CHARACTER OF THE MOVEMENT 151
to a sermon on the adoration due to the Body of Christ
present in the Holy Sacrament. A few, mostly women,
were acquitted.^
Francis I. died in March 1547. The persistent perse-
cution which had marked the later years of his reign had
done little or nothing to quench the growing Protestantism
of France. It had only succeeded in driving it beneath
the surface.
Henry ii. never indulged in the vacillating policy of his
father. From the beginning of his reign he set himself
esolutely to combat the Eeformation. His favourite
councillors — his all-powerful mistress, Diane of Poitiers ; his
chief Minister, the Constable Montmorency, in high repute
for his skill in the arts of war and of government ; the
Guises, a great family, originally belonging to Lorraine, who
had risen to power in France — were all strong supporters
of the Eoman Catholic religion, and resolute to destroy the
growing Protestantism of France. The declared policy of
the King was to slay the Eeformation by attacking it through
every form of legal suppression that could be devised.
§ 3. Change in the Character of the Movement for Be form.
The task was harder than it had bcQn during the reign
of Francis. In spite of the persecutions, the adherents of
the new faith had gone on increasing in a wonderful way.
Many of the priests and monks had been, converted to Evan-
gelical doctrines. They taught them secretly and openly ;
and they could expose in a telling way the corruptions of
the Church, having known them from the inside. School-
masters, if one may judge from the arrdts of the Parlcments,
were continually blamed for dissuading their pupils from
going to Mass, and for corrupting' the youth by instructing
them in the " false and pernicious doctrines of Geneva."
Many Colleges were named as seed- beds- of the Eeformation
— Angers, Bourges, Fontenay, La Eochelle, Loudun, Xiort,
Nimes, and Poitiers. The theatre itself became an agent
^ H. M. Bower, 77?o Fourteen of Mcaux (London, 1894).
152 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
for reform when the corruptions of the Church and the
morals of the clergy were attacked in popular plays. The
refugees in Strassburg, Geneva, and Lausanne spared no
pains to send the Evangelical doctrines to their countrymen.
Ardent young Frenchmen, trained abroad, took their lives
in their hand, and crept quietly through the length and
breadth of France. They met converts and inquirers in
solitary suburbs, in cellars of houses, on highways, and by
the rivers. The records of the ecclesiastical police enable
us to trace the spread of the Eeformation along the great
roads and waterways of France. The mission ers changed
their names frequently to elude observation. Some, with
a daring beyond their fellows, did not hesitate to visit the
towns and preach almost openly to the people. The propa-
ganda carried on by colporteurs was scarcely less successful.
These were usually young men trained at Geneva or Strass-
burg. They carried their books in a pack on their backs,
and hawked them in village and town, describing their con-
tents, and making little sermons for the listeners. Among
the notices of seizures we find such titles as the following :
— Les Colloques of Erasmus, La Fontaine de Vie (a selection
of scriptural passages translated into French), the Livre de
vraye et parfaicte oraison (a translation of extracts from
Luther's writings), the Cinquante-deux psaumes, the CaUchisme
de Geneve, Fridres eccUsiastiques avec la niani^re d'administrer
les sacrements, an Alphabet chHtien, and an Instruction
chretienne pour les petits enfants. No edicts against printing
books which had not been submitted to the ecclesiastical
authorities were able to put an end to this secret
colportage.
In these several ways the Evangelical faith was spread
abroad, and before the death of Francis there was not a
district in France with the single exception of Brittany
which had not its secret Protestants, while many parts of
the country swarmed with them.
CALVIN AND HIS INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 153
§ 4. Calvin and his Influence in France.
The Eeformation in France had been rapidly changing
its character since 1536, the year in which Lefevre died,
and in which Calvin's Christian Institution was published.
It was no longer a Christian mysticism supplemented by a
careful study of the Scriptures ; it had advanced beyond
the stage of individual followers of Luther or Zwingli ; it
had become united, presenting a solid phalanx to its foes ; it
had rallied round a manifesto which was at once a com-
pleted scheme of doctrine, a prescribed mode of worship,.and
a code of morals ; it had found a leader who was both a
master and a commander-in-chief. The publication of the
Christian Institution had effected this. The young man
whom the Town Council of Geneva could speak of as " a
certain Frenchman " {Callus quidam) soon took a foremost
place among the leaders of the whole Eeformation move-
ment, and moulded in his plastic hands the Eeformation
in France.
Calvin's .early life and his work in Geneva have
already been described; but his special influence on
France must not pass unnoticed.^ He had an extra-
ordinary power over his co-religionists' in his native land.^
He was a Frenchman — one of themselves ; no ' foreigner
speaking an unfamihar tongue ; no enemy of the Fatlierland
to follow whom might seem to be unpatriotic. It is true
that his fixed abode lay beyond the confines of France ;
but distance, which gave him freedom of action, made him
* Cf. above, pp. 92 fF. What follows on Calvin's influence on the IJoror-
mation in France has been borrowed largely from M, Henri Lenioniiier,
Hisfoiredc France, etc. (Paris, 1903-4) V. i. pp. 381-383, ii. pp. 183-187, etc. ;
only a Frenchman can describe it and him sympathetically.
'^ The Venetian Ambassador at the Court of France, writing in 1561 to
the Doge, says, "Your Serenity will hardly believe the influence and the
great power which the principal minister of Geneva, by name Calvin, a
Frenchman and a native of Picardy, possesses in this kingdom. He is a
man of extraordinary authority, who by his mode of life, his doctrines and
his writings, rises superior to all the rest" {Calendar of Slate Papers,
Venetian, 1558-80, p. 323).
154 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
the more esteemed. He was the apostle who wrote " to
all that be in France, beloved of God, called to be
saints."
While still a student, Calvin had shown that he
possessed, besides a marvellous memory, an acute and pene-
trating intellect, with a great faculty for assimilating ideas
and modes of thought ; but he lacked what may be called
artistic imagination,^ and neither poetry nor art seemed to
strike any responsive chord in his soul. His conduct was
always straightforward, irreproachable, and dignified ; he was
by education and breeding, if not by descent, the polished
French gentleman, and was most at home with men and
w*omen of noble birth. His character was serious, with
little playfulness, little vivacity, but with a wonderful
power of sympathy. He was reserved, somewhat shy,
slow to make intimate friends, but once made the friend-
ships lasted for life. At all periods of age, boy, student,
man of letters, leader of a great party, he seems to have
been a centre of attraction and of deferential trust. The
effect of this mysterious charm was felt by others besides
those of his own age. Hia professor, Mathurin Cordier,
became his devoted disciple. Melanchthon wished that
he might die with his head on Calvin's breast. Luther,
in spite of his suspicion of everything that came from
Switzerland, was won to love and trust him. And Knox,
the most rugged and independent of men, acknowledged
Calvin as his master, consulted him in every doubt and
difficulty, and on all occasions save one meekly followed
his counsels. He loved children, and had them at his
house for Christmas trees ; but (and this is character-
istically French) always addressed them with ceremonious
^ Calvin did not lack imagination. The sanctified imagination has never
made grander or loftier flight than in the thought of the Purpose of God
moving slowly down through tlie Ages, making for redemption and for the
establishment of the Kingdom, which is the master-idea in the Christian
Institution. It was de Beze (Beza), not Calvin, who was the father of
• the seventeenth century doctrine of predestination, — a conception which
differed from Calvin's as widely as the skeleton differs from the man
instinct with life and action.
CALVIN AND HIS INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 155
politeness, as if they were grown men and women deserving
as much consideration as himself. It was this trait that
captivated de Beze when he was a boy of twelve.
Calvin was a democrat intellectually and l)y silent
principle. This appears almost everywhere in his private
writings, and was noted by such a keen observer as
Tavannes. It was never more unconsciously displayed
than in the preface or dedication of the Christian
Institution.
"This preface, instead of pleading with the King on
behalf of the Reformation, places the movement right before
him, and makes him see it. Its tone throughout firm and
dignified, calm and stately when Calvin addresses Francis
L directly, more bitter and sarcastic when he is speaking
of theologians, la pensde et la forme du style toutes vibrantes
du ton hihlique, the very simplicity and perfect frankness
of the address, give the impression of one who is speaking
on equal terms with his peer. All suggest the Christian
democrat without a trace of the revolutionary." ^
The source of his power — logic impregnated by the
passion of conviction — is so peculiarly French that perhaps
only his countrymen can fully understand and appreciate it,
and they have not been slow to do so.
All these characteristic traits appealed to them. His
passion for equality, as strong as the Apostle Paul's, com-
pelled him to take his followers into his confidence, to
make them apprehend what he knew to the innermost
thoughts of his heart. It forced him to exhibit the
reasons for his faith to all who cared to know them, to
arrange them in a logical order which would appeal to
their understanding, and his passion of conviction assured
him and them that what he taught was the very truth of
God. Then he was a very great- writer,^ one of the founders
^ Henri Lemonnier, Eistoire de France, etc. (Paris, 1903) V. i. 383.
2 "Calvin fut un tres grand dcrivain. Je dirais meme que ce fut le plus
grand ^crivain du IG" siecle si j'estimaisplus que je ne fais le %/g proprement
dit. . . . Encore est-il qu'il nie faut bien recontiaitre que le style de Calvin
est de tous les styles du 16^ siecle celui qui a le j^lus de stifle. . . . Reate
156 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
of modern French prose, the most exquisite literary medium
that exists, a man made to arrest the attention of the
people. He wrote all his important works in French for
his countrymen, as well as in Latin for the learned world.
His language and style were fresh, clear, and simple ; with-
out affected elegance or pedantic display of erudition ; full of
vigour and verve ; here, caustic wit which attracted ; there,
eloquence which spoke to the hearts of his readers becausa
it throbbed with burning passion and strong emotion.
It is unlikely that all his disciples in France appreciated
his doctrinal system in its details. The Christian Institution
appealed to them as the strongest protest yet made against
the abuses and scandals of the Eoman Church, as contain-
ing a code of duties owed to God and man, as exhibiting
an ideal of life pure and lofty, as promising everlasting
blessedness for the called and chosen and faithful. " It
satisfied at one and the same time the intellects which
demanded logical proof and the souls which had need of
enthusiasm.*'
It has been remarked that Calvin's theology was less
original and effective than his legislation or policy.^ The
statement seems to overlook the peculiar service which was
rendered to the Eeformation movement by the Institution.
''The Eeformation was a rebellion against the external
authority of the mediaeval Church ; but every revolt, even
that against the most flagrant abuses and the most corrupt
rule, carries in it seeds of evil which must be slain if any
real progress is to be made. For it instinctively tends to
sweep away all restraints — those that are good and
necessary as well as those that are bad and harmful.
The leaders of every movement for reform have a harder
qu'il parle I'admirable prose, si claire, limpide et facile, du 15^ siecle, avec
ce quelque chose de plus ferme, de plus nourri et de plus viril que I'etude des
classiques donne k ceux qui ne poussent pas jusqu'a I'imitation servile et k
Tadmirature des menus jolis details. Reste qull parle la langue du 15^ siecle
avec quelques qualites deja du 17®. C'est precisement ce qu'il a fait, etil
est un des bons, sinon des sublimes, fondateurs de la prose francaise" (Emile
Faguet, Seizieme Siecle : Eludes Literaires, pp. 188-89, Paris, 1898).
* Cambridge Modern History, ii. 366.
CALVIN AND HIS INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 157
battle to fight against the revolutionaries in their following
than against their avowed opponents. At the root of the
Reformation of the sixteenth century lay an appeal from
man to God — from the priest, granting or withholdincr
absolution in the confessional, to God making the sinner,
who turns from his sins and has faith in the" person and
work of Christ, know in his heart that he is pardoned ; from
the decision of Popes and Councils to the decrees of God
revealed in His Holy Word. This appeal was in the
nature of the case from the seen to the unseen, and therein
lay the difficulty ; for unless this unseen could be made
visible to the eye of the intelligence to such a degree that
the restraining authority which it possessed could impress
itself on the will, there was risk of its proving to be no
restraining authority whatsoever, and of men fancying lliat
they had been left to be a law imto themselves. What the
Christian Institution did for the sixteenth century was to
make the unseen government and authority of God, to which
all must bow, as visible to the intellectual eye of faith as
the mechanism of the mediaeval Church had been to the
eye of sense. It proclaimed that the basis of all Christian
faith was the Word of God revealed in the Holy Scriptures ;
it taught the absolute dependence of all things on God
Himself immediately and directly ; it- declared that the
sin of man was such that, apart from the working of the
free grace of God, there could be neither pardon nor
amendment, nor salvation; and it wov-e all these thoughts
into a logical unity which revealed to the intellectual eye
of its gbiidiation the " House of God not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens." Men as they gazed sa\y that
they were in the immediate presence of the authority of
God Himself, directly responsible to Him ; that they could
test " the Pope's House " by this divine archetype : that
it was their duty to reform all human institutions,
ecclesiastical or political, in order tt) bring them into
harmony with the divine vision. It made men know that
to separate themselves from the visible mediaeval Church
was neither to step outside the sphere of the purpose of
158 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
God making for their redemption, nor to free themselves
from the duties which God requires of man.
The work which Calvin did for his co-religionists in
France was immense. He carried on a constant corre-
spondence with them ; he sustained their courage ; he gave
their faith a sublime exaltation. When he heard of a
French Eomanist who had begun to hesitate, he wrote to
him combining persuasion with instruction. He pleaded
the cause of the Eeformation with its nominal supporters.
He encouraged the weak. He sent letters to the persecuted.
He forwarded short theological treatises to assist those
who had got into controversies concerning their faith. He
advised the organisation of congregations. He recommended
energetic pastors. He warned slothful ministers.
" We must not think," he says, " that our work is con-
fined within such narrow limits that our task is ended when
we have preached sermons ... it is our part to maintain
a vigilant oversight of those committed to our care, and
take the greatest pains to guard from evil those whose
blood will one day be demanded from us if they are lost
through our negligence." ^ ^
He answered question after question about the difficulty
of reconciling the demands of the Christian life with what
was required by the world around — a matter which pressed
hard on the consciences of men and women who belonged
to a religious minority in a great Eoman Catholic kingdom.
He was no casuist. He wrote to Madame de Cany, the
sister of the Duchess d'fitampes, that " no one, great or
small, ought to believe themselves exempt from suffering
for the sake of our sovereign King." He was listened to
with reverence ; for he was not a counsellor who advised
others to do what he was not prepared to do himself.
He could say, " Be ye followers of me, as I am of the
Lord Jesus Christ." Frenchmen and Frenchwomen knew
that the master whom they obeyed, the director they con-
sulted, to whom they whispered the secrets of their souls^
^ La, CaUchisnie frangais, p. 132. Opera, v. 319.
CALVIN AND HIS INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 159
lived the hardest and most ascetic life of any man in
Europe, — scarcely eating, drinking, or sleeping; that his
frail body was kept alive by the energy of his indomitable
soul.
Frenchmen of varying schools of thought have not
been slow to recognise the secret of the power of their great
countryman. Jules M'ichelet says :
"Among the martyrs, with whom Calvin constantly
conversed in spirit, he became a martyr himself ; he lived
and felt like a man before whom the whole earth disappears,
and who tunes his last Psalm his whole eye fixed upon the
eye of God, because he knows that on the following morning
he may have to ascend the pyre."
Ernest Eenan is no less emphatic :
" It is surprising that a man who appears to us in his life
and writings so unsympathetic should have been the centre
of an immense movement in his generation, and that this
harsh and severe tone should have exercised so great an
influence on the minds of his contemporaries. How was it,
for example, that one of the most distinguished women of
her time, Eenee of France, in her Court at Ferrara, sur-
rounded by the flower of European wits, was captivated by
that stern master, and by him drawn into a course that
must have been so thickly strewn with thorns ? This kind
of austere seduction is exercised only by those who work
with real conviction. Lacking that vivid, deep, syin pathetic
ardour which was one of the secrets of Luther's success,
lacking the charm, the perilous, languishing tenderness of
Francis de Sales, Calvin succeeded, in an age and in a
country which called for a reaction towards- Christianity,
simply because he was tlie most Christian man of his
generation.^'
Thus it was that all those in France who felt the need
of intimate fellowship with God, all to whom a religion,
which was at once inflexible in matters of moral living and
which appealed to their reasoning faculties, was a necessity,
hailed the Christian Institution as the clearest manifesto
of their faith, and grouped themselves round the young
author (Calvin was barely twenty-six when he wrote it) as
160 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
their leader. Those also who suffered under the pressure
of a despotic government, and felt the evils of a society
constituted to uphold the privileges of an aristocracy,
learnt that in a neighbouring country there was a city
which had placed itself under the rule of the Word of
God ; where everyone joined in a common worship attractive
from its severe simplicity ; where the morals, public and
private, were pure ; where the believers selected their
pastors and the people their rulers ; where there were
neither masters nor subjects ; where the ministers of
religion lived the lives of simple laymen, and were dis-
tinguished from them only by the exercise of their sacred
service. They indulged in the dream that all France
might be fashioned after the model of Geneva.
Many a Frenchman who was dissatisfied with the
condition of things in France, but had come to no personal
decision to leave the mediaeval Church, could not help
contrasting what he saw around him with the life and
aspiration of those " of the religion," ^ as the French
Protestants began to be called. They saw themselves
confronted by a religion full of mysteries inaccessible to
reason, expressing itself even in public worship in a
language unintelligible to most of the worshippers, full of
pomp, of luxury, of ceremonies whose symbolical meaning
had been forgotten. They saw a clergy commonplace and
ignorant, or aristocratic and indifferent ; a nobility greedy
and restless ; a Court whose luxurious display and scandals
were notorious ; royal mistresses and faithless husbands
and wives. Almost everywhere we find a growing tendency
to contrast the purity of Protestantism and the corruption
of Eoman Catholicism. It found outcome in the famous
scene in the Parlement of Paris (1559), when Antoine
de Bourg, son of a former Chancellor, advocated
the total suspension of the persecution against those
" who were called heretics," and enforced his opinion by
contrasting the blasphemies and scandals of the Court
^ The term was adopted from the edicts, "ladite religion pr^tendue
reform^e," with the qualifying adjectives left out.
PERSECUTION UNDER HENRY II. 161
with the morality and the purity of the lives of those who
were being sent to the stake, — a speech for which he after-
wards lost his life.^
It was this growing united Protestantism which Henry
II. and his advisers had determined to crush by the action
.of the legislative authority.
§ 5. Persec^dion under Henry 11?
The repressive legal measures introduced by Francis i.
were retained, and a new law against blasphemy (pre-
pared, no doubt, during the last days of Francis) was
published five days after the King's death (April "5th,
1547). But more was believed to be necessary. So a
series of edicts, culminating in the Edict of Chateau-
br.>^ ', were published, which aimed at uniting all
^ Henri Lemoiinier, Histoirc de France, etc. (Paris, 1903) V. ii. 187.
2 Sources in addition to those mentioned on p. 136 : Lettres inedites dc
Diane de Poitiers, publiees avec une introduction et des notes par G., Guiffrey
(Paris, 1866) ; M6moires de Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes, 1530-73 (published
in the Collection oi Michaud and Povjoulat, viii.) ; Mtmoiresde Francois dc
Guise (in the same collection, vi.) ; Lettres de Catherine de M^dicis and
Pajners d'etat die Cardinal de Granvelle (in the Collection des Documents
inedits de CUistoire de France) ; Lettres d'Antoine dc Bourbon ct dc Jcanut
d'Albret (in the publications of the Soci6t4 de V Histoirc de France) ; Lcs
(Euvres comjdetes dc Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantome (edit, by
L. Lalanne for the Soci6t6 de V Histoirc de France, impoi;tant for the persons
and morals of the times) ; C. Weiss, La Chambre ardente, etude snr la libertii
de Conscience en France, sous Fran<iois I. ct Henri II. Jo40-50 {Favis, 1889).
Layard, Dispatches oj Michele Snr in no and Mar^antonio Barbaro, Venetian
Ambassadors at the Court of France (Lymington, 1891, pub. by the
Huguenot Society of London). Teiilet, Iiclcctions politique de la France et rf/*
VEspagne avcc fA'cosse (Paris, 1862) ; and Papiers d^'tat rclatifsa VHistoirr
de r^cosse {Bannatyne Cltib, Paris, 1851) ; Correspondance du Cardinal dr
Granvelle (Brussels, 1877-96) ; Calendar of State Papiers, VeneMan, 15B8-80
(London, 1890, etc.)
Later Books in addition to those mentioned on p. 136 : A. de Ruble,
Le Traite de Cateau-Cambr^si^ (Paris. '1889) ; A. W. Wliitehead, Gaspard
Coligny, Admiral of France (London. 1905) ;, the Bulletin historique et
litt&aire de Vhistoire du protestantisms fran^ais, edited by Weiss, is a
mine of information on all matters connected with the Reformation in
France. A. de Ruble, Antoine de Bourbon rt Jeanne d'Alhrrt (Paris, 1881-82),
and Le Colloque de Poissy (Paris, 1889) ; F. Dccrue, Anne dc Montmorency
(Paris, 1885-89).
162 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
the forces of the kingdom to extirpate the Eeformed
faith.
On October 8th, 1547, a second criminal court was
added to the Parlement of Paris, to deal solely with cases
of heresy. This was the famous Chainbre Ardente. It
was ordered to sit continuously, even during the ordinary
Parliamentary vacancies in August and September ; and
its first session lasted from Dec. 1547 to Jan. 1550, dur-
ing which time it must have passed more than five hundred
judgments. The clergy felt that this special court took
from them one of their privileges, the right of trying all
cases of heresy. They petitioned against it. A com-
promise was arranged (Edict of Nov. 19th, 1549), by
which all cases of simple heresy {cas communs) were to
be sent to the ecclesiastical courts, while cases of heresy
accompanied by public scandal {cas 'primUgies) were to be
judged in the civil courts. In practice it usually happened
that all cases of heresy went first before the ecclesiastical
courts and, after judgment there, those which were believed
to be attended by public scandal (the largest number)
were sent on to the civil courts. These measures were not
thought sufficient, and the Edict of Chateaubriand (June
27th, 1551) codified and extended all the various legal
measures taken for the defence of the Eoman Catholic
faith.
The edict was lengthy, and began with a long preamble,
which declared that in spite of all measures of repression,
heresy was increasing ; that it was a pestilence " so contagious
that it had infected most of the inhabitants, men, women, and
even little children, in many of the towns and districts of the
kingdom," and asked every loyal subject to aid the Govern-
ment in extirpating the plague. It provided that, as before,
all cases of simple heresy should be judged in the ecclesi-
astical courts, and that heresy accompanied .with public
scandal should be sent to the civil courts of the Parlements.
It issued stringent regulations about the publication and
sale of books ; forbidding the introduction into France of
volumes from Protestant countries ; forbidding the printing
PERSECUTION UNDER HENRY II. 163
of books which had not passed thei censor of the Faculty
of Theology, and all books published anonymously; and
ordering an examination of all printing houses and book-
shops twice in the year. Private persons who did not
inform against heretics were liable to be considered
heretics themselves, and punished as such ; and when thev
did denounce them they were to receive one-third of
the possessions of the persons condemned. Parents were
charged " by the pity, love, and charity which they owed
to their children," not to engage any teachers who might
be " suspect " ; no one was permitted to teach in school or
college who was not certified to be orthodox ; and masters
were made responsible for their servants. Intercourse
with those who had taken refuge in Geneva was prohibited,
and' the goods of the refugees were confiscated. All
Catholics, and more especially persons of rank and in
authority, were required to give . the earnest example of
attending carefully to outward observances of religion, and
in particular to kneel in adoration of the Host.
The edict was registered on Sept. 3rd, 1551, and
immediately put in force. Six years later, the King had
to confess thdt its stringent provisions had failed to arrest
the spread of the Protestant faith. He proposed to
establish the Inquisition in France, moved thereto by the
Cardinal of Lorraine and Pope Paul I v. ; and was prevented
only by the strenuous opposition of his Parlement} Ho
had to content himself with issuing the Edict of Compiegne
(1557), which, while nominally leaving trials for heresy
in the hands of the ecclesiastical courts, practically handed
^ The Parlements were the* highest jiulicial courts in France. By far the
most important was the Parlement of Paris, wliose jurisdiction extended over
Picardie, Champagne, I'lle-de-France, I'Orleanais, Maine, Tourainc, Anjou,
Poitou, Aunis, Berri, La Bourbonnais, Auvergne, and La Marche —
almost the half of France. The other Parlements in the time of Henry ii.
were those of Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Daupliine, Provence,
Langiiedoc, Guyenne, and, up to 1 559, Chambery and Turin. Tlie Parlcvienis
are frequently mentioned under the names of the to^vns in wliich they
met ; thus the Parlement of Normandy is called the Parlement of Houcn ;
that of Provence, the Parlement of Aix ; that of Langucdoc, the Parleiiu-iU
of Toulouse.
164 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
them over to the civil courts, where the judges were not
allowed to inflict any lesser punishment than death. They
w^ere permitted to increase the penalty by inflicting torture,
or to mitigate it by strangling the victims before burning
them.
Armed with this legislation, the work of hunting out
the Reformed was strenuously carried on. Certain prisons
were specially reserved for the Protestant martyrs — the
Conciergerie, which was part of the building of the Palace,
and the Grand ChCitelet, which faced it on the opposite
bank of the Seine. They soon overflowed, and suspects
were confined in the Bastille, in the Petit Chatelet, and
in episcopal prisons. The cells of the Conciergerie were
below the level of the river, and water oozed from the
walls; the Grand Chatelet was noted for its terrible
dungeons, so small that the prisoner could neither stand
upright nor lie at full length on the floor. Diseases
decimated the victims ; the plague slew sixty who w^ere
waiting for trial in the Grand Chatelet in 1547. Few
were acquitted ; almost all, once arrested, suffered death
and torture.^
§ 6. The Organisation of the French Protestant Church.
It was during these years of terrible persecution that
the Protestant Church of France organised itself — feeling
the need for unity the better to sustain the conflict in
which it was engaged, and to assist its weaker members.
Calvin was mi wearied in urging on this work of organisa-
tion. With the fire of a prophet and the foresight of a
^ Weiss, La Chamhre ardente, etude sur la libcrtd de conscience en France,
sous Francois I. et Henri II., 151/0-50 (Paris, 1889), is very valuable from
the collection of documents which it contains. Crespin's Histoire des
martyrs, etc., when tested by the official documents now accessible, has been
found to be almo.st invariably correct, and without exaggeration. Weiss,
"Une Semaine de la Chambre ardente" (1-8 Oct. 1549), in the Bulletin
historique et litttraire de la societe de l' histoire du protestantisme fran^ais for
1899 ; and Dcs cinq cscolicrs sortis de Lausanne hrulez a Lyon (Geneva,
1878).
ORGANISATION OF FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH 165
statesman he insisted on the necessity of unity during the
storm and strain of a time of persecution. He had
already shown what form the ecclesiastical organisation
ouo-ht to take.^ He proposed to revive the simple three-
fold ministry of the Church of the early centuries — a
congregation ruled by a bishop or pastor, a- session of
elders, and a body of deacons. This was adopted by the
French Protestants. A group of believers, a minister,
a " consistory " of elders and deacons, regular preaching,
and the sacraments duly administered, made a Church
properly constituted. The minister was the chief; he
preached; he administered the sacraments; he presided
at the " consistory." The " consistory " was composed of
elders charged with the spiritual oversight of the com-
munity, and of deacons who looked after the poor and
the sick. The elders and the deacons were chosen by
the members of the congregation; and the minister by
the elders and the deacons. An organised Church did
not come into existence all at once as a rule, and a
distinction was drawn between an ^glise plantee, and an
^glise dressde. The former was in an embryonic state, with
a pastor, it might be, but no consistory ; or it might be
only a group of people who welcomed the oceusional
services of a wandering missioner, or held simple services
without any definite leader. »
The year 1555 may be taken as the date when
French Protestantism began to organise Churches. It is
true that a few had been established earlier — at Meaux
in 1546 and at Nunes in 1547, but the congregations
had been dispersed by persecution. Before 155.5 the
Protestants of France had been for the most part soHtary
Bible students, or httle companies meeting together for
common worship without any organisation.
Paris set the example. A small company of behevers
had been accustomed to meet in the 'lodging of the Sieur
de la Ferriere, near the Pre-aux-Clercs. The birth of a
child hastened matters. The father explained that lie
1 Institutio Christiance Religionis, iv. iii. iv.
166 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
could not go outside France to seek a pure baptism, ani
that his conscience would not permit his child to be
baptized according to the rites of the Eoman Church,
After prayer the company resolved to constitute them-
selves into a Church. Jean le Ma^on was called to be
the minister or pastor ; elders and deacons were chosen ;
and the organisation was complete.^ It seemed as if all
Protestant France had been waiting for the signal, and
organised Churches sprang up everywhere.
Crespin names thirteen Churches, completely organised
in the manner of the Church of Paris, founded between
1555 and 1557 — Meaux, Poitiers, Angers, les lies de
Saintonge, Agen, Bourges, Issoudun, Aubigny, Blois, Tours,
Lyon, Orleans, and Eouen. He adds that there were
others. Documentary evidence now available enables us
to give thirty-six more, all dressies, or completely organised,
with a consistory or kirk-session, before 1560. One
hundred and twenty pastors were sent to France from
Geneva before 1567. The history of these congregations
during the reign of Henry ii. was full of tragic and
dramatic incidents.^ They existed in the midst of a
population which was for the most part fanatically
Eomanist, easily excited by priests and monks, who poured
forth violent addresses from the pulpits of neighbouring-
churches. Law-courts, whether in the capital or in the
provinces, the public officials, all loyal subjects of the
King, were invited, commanded by the Edict of Chateau-
briand, to ferret out and hunt down those suspected of
Protestant sympathies. To fail to make a reverence when
passing a crucifix, to speak unguardedly against an eccle-
siastical ceremony, to exhibit the slightest sympathy for
a Protestant martyr, to be found in possession of a
book printed in Geneva, was sufficient to provoke a
^ Athanase Coquerel fils. Precis de Vhistoire de Viglise riformie de Paris
(Paris, 1862) — valuable for the numerous official documents in the
appendix.
^ Antoine de Chandieu, Histoire des persecutions et martyrs de V^glise de
Paris, depuis Van 1537 (Lyons, 1563).
ORGANISATION OF FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH 167
'ienunciation, an arrest, a trial which must end in torture
dnd death. Protestants were compelled to worship in
cellars, to creep stealthily to their united devotions ; like
the early Christians during the persecutions under Decius or
Diocletian, they had to meet at midnight ; and these mid-
night assemblies gave rise to the same infamous reports
about their character which the Jews spread abroad
regarding the secret meetings of the Christians of the
first three centuries.^ Every now and then they
were discovered, as in the incident of the Eue Saint-
Jacques in Paris, and wholesale arrests and martyrdoms
followed.
The organisation of the faithful into Churches had
done much for French Protestantism in bestowing upon
them the power which association gives ; but more was
needed to weld them into one. In 1558, doctrinal differ-
ences arose in the congregation at Poitiers. The Church
in Paris was appealed to, and its minister, Antoine de
Chandieu, went to Poitiers to assist at the celebration of
the Holy Supper, and to heal the dispute. There, it is
said, the idea of a Confession of Faith for the whole
Church was ' suggested. Calvin was consulted, but did
not approve. Notwithstanding, on May 25th, 1559, a
number of ministers and elders, coming from all parts of
France, and representing, according to ar contemporary
document whose authority is somewhat doubtful, sixty-six
Dhurches,^ met in Paris^ for conference. Three days were
spent in deliberations, under the presidency of Morel, one
of the Parisian ministers. This was the First National
Synod of the French Protestant Church. It compiled a
Confession of Faith and a Book of Discipline.
* (Ettvres completes de Pierre de Bourdeillc, Seigneur de Brant6m^, edited
by L. Lalanne for the Societc de VHistoire de France (11 vols., Paris, 1864-
82), ix. 161-62.
^ It is more probable that only twelve Churches were represented — Paris,
Saint-L6. Rouen, Dieppe, Angers, Orleans, Toui's, Poitiers, Saintes,
Marennes, Chatellerault, and SaintJean-d'Angely. H. Dieterlen, La
Synode g^iiralede Paris, 1559 (Montauban, 1873) : this was published as a
thesis for the Theological Faculty (Protestant) of Montauban.
I
168 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
The Confession of Faith ^ {Confession de Foi faite ct \m
commun accord par les Frangois^ qui desirent vivre selon la
pureU dc V^vangile de notre Seigneur J4sus Christ) consists
of forty articles. It was revised more than once by
subsequent Synods, but may still be called the Confession
of the French Protestant Church. It was based on a
short Confession drafted by Calvin in 1557, and embodied
in a letter to the King on behalf of his persecuted
subjects. " It seemed useful," one of the members of the
Synod wrote to Calvin, " to add some articles to your
Confession, and to modify it slightly on some points."
Probably out of deference to Calvin's objection to a creed
for the whole Church, it was resolved to keep it secret for
some time. The resolution was in vain. The Confession
was in print, and known before the end of 1559.
The Book of Discipline {Discipline eccUsiastique des
^glises r^form^es de France) regulated the organisation and
the discipline of the Churches. It was that kind of
ecclesiastical polity which has become known as
Presbyterian, but which might be better called Conciliar.
A council called the Consistory, consisting of the minister
or ministers, elders, and deacons, ruled the congregation.
Congregations were formed into groups, over which was
the Colloquy, composed of representatives from the
Consistories ; over the Colloquies were the Provincial
Synods ; and over all the General or National Synod.
Piules were laid down about how discipline was to be
exercised. It was stated clearly that no Church could
claim a primacy over the others. All ministers were
required to sign the Confession of Faith, and to acknow-
ledge and submit to the ecclesiastical discipline.^
^ The Confession will be found in Scliaff, The Creeds of the Evangelical
Protestant Churches (London, 1877), pp. 356 ff. ; Miiller, Die Bekenntnis-
schriften der reformierten Kirche (1903), p. 221 ; the various texts are
discussed at p. xxxiii.
^ The Consistories sometimes condescended to details. In the calmer
days after the Edict of Nantes, the pastor and Consistory of Montauban
thought that the arrangement of Madame de Mornay's hair was trop
mondaine : Madame argued with them in a s})irited way ; cf. Mimoires dc
REACTION AGAINST PERSECUTION 169
It is interesting to see how in a country whose civil
rule was becoming gradually more absolutist, this " Church
under the Cross " framed for itself a government which
reconciled, more thoroughly perhaps than has ever been
done since, the two principles of popular rights and
supreme central control. Its constitution has spread to
Holland, Scotland, and to the great American Churches.
Their ecclesiastical polity came much more from Paris
than from Geneva.
§ 7. Reaction against Persecution.
An attentive study of the sources of the history of the
period shows that the excessive severity of King and
Court towards Protestants had excited a fairly wide-
spread reaction in favour of the persecuted, and had
also impelled the King to action which was felt by many
to be unconstitutional. This sympathy with the persecuted
and repugnance to the arbitrary exercise of kingship did
much to mould the Huguenot movement which lay in the
immediate future.
The protests against the institution of the Chamhre
Ardente, the refusal of the Parlement of Paris to register
the edict establishing the Inquisition in France, and the
hesitancy to put in execution extraordinary powers bestowed
on French Cardinals for the punishing of heretics by the
Bull of Pope Paul iv. (Feb. 26th, 1557), may all be ascribed
to the jealousy with which the Courts, ecclesiastical and
civil, viewed any interference with their privileged jurisdic-
tion. But the Edict of Chateaubriand (1551), with its
articles declaring the unwillingness or negligence shown by
public officials in finding out and punishing heretics, making
provisions against this, and ordaining that none but persons
of well-known orthodoxy were to be appointed magistrates
(Arts. 23, 28, 24), confessed that there were many even
among those in office who disliked the policy of persecution.
Madame du Pkssis-Momay {SocUU de VHistoire de France, Taria, 1868-69),
i. 270-310.
170 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
Contemporary official documents confirm this unwillingness.
We hear of municipal magistrates intervening to protect
their Protestant fellow-citizens from punishment in the
ecclesiastical courts ; of town's police conniving at the
escape of heretics ; of a procurator at law who was
suspended from office for a year for such connivance ; ^ and
of civil courts who could not be persuaded to pass sentences
except merely nominal ones.
The growing discontent at the severe treatment of the
persecuted Protestants made itself manifest, even within
the Parlement of Paris, so long notorious for its persecuting
zeal. This became evident when the criminal court of the
Parlement (la Tournelle, 1559) commuted a sentence of
death passed on three Protestants into one of banishment.
The violent Eomanists protested against this, and demanded
a meeting of the whole Parlement to fix its mode of
judicial action. At this meeting some of the members
— Antoine Fumee, du Faur, Viole, and Antoine du Bourg
(the son of a Chancellor in the days of Francis I.) — spoke
strongly on behalf of the Protestants. They pleaded that
a space of six months after trial should be given to the
accused to reconsider their position, and that, if they
resolve to stand fast in the faith, they should be allowed to
withdraw from the kingdom. Their boldness encouraged
others. The Cardinal Lorraine and the Constable
Montmorency dreaded the consequences of prolonged
discussion, and communicated their fears to the King.
Henry, accompanied by the Cardinals of Lorraine and ot
Guise, the Constable, and Francis, Duke de Guise, entered
the hall where Parlement sat, and ordered the discussion
to be continued in his presence. The minority were
not intimidated. Du Faur and Viole demanded a total
cessation of the persecution pending the summoning of a
Council. Du Bourg went further. He contrasted the
pure lives and earnest piety of the persecuted with the
scandals which disgraced the Eomau Church and the Court.
" It is no light matter," he said, " to condemn to the stake
^ Bulletin de la fiocitte de I'hist. du protestantisme francais, 1854, p, 24.
HIGHER ARISTOCRACY WON FOR REFORMATION 171
men who invoke the name of Jesus in the midst of the
flames." The King was furious. He ordered the arrest
of du Bourg and du Faur on the spot, and shortly after-
wards Fumee and La Porte were also sent to the Bastile.
This arbitrary seizure of members of the Farlement of Paris
may be said to mark the time when the Protestants of
Fiance began to assume the form of a political as well as
of a religious party. At this anxious juncture Henry ii.
met his death, on June 80th, by the accidental thrust of a
lance at a tournament held in honour of the approaching
marriage of his daughter Elizabeth with Philip of Spain.
He lingered till July 10th, 1559.
I 8. The higher Aristocracy won for the Reformation.
When the lists of Protestants who suffered for their
faith in France or who were compelled to take refuge in
Geneva and other Protestant towns are examined and
analysed, as they have been by French archcTologists, it is
found that the great number of martyrs and refugees were
artisans, tradesmen, farmers, and the like.^ A few names
of " notables " — a general, a member of the Parlement of
Toulouse, a " gentleman " of Limousin — are found among
the martyrs, and a much larger proportion among the
fu<ntives. The names of members of noble houses of
France are conspicuous by their absence. This does not
necessarily mean that the new teaching had not found
acceptance among men and women in the upper classes of
French society. The noble of the sixteenth century, so
long as he remained within his own territory and in his
chateau, was almost independent. He was not subject to
the provincial tribunals. Protestantism had been spreading
among such. We hear of several high-born ladies present
in the congregation of three or four hundred Protestants
who .were surrounded in a large house in the Eue St.
Jacques (Sept. 4th, 1558), and who were released. Kenee,
' Hauser, "La Reforme et les classes populaires en France au xvi^ siecle"
in the Revue d'hist. 7nod. et contemp. i. (1S99-1900).
i
172 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
daughter of Louis xii., Duchess of Ferrara, had declared
herself a Protestant, and had been visited by Calvin as
early as 1535.^ Francis d'Andelot, the youngest of the
three Chatillons, became a convert during his imprisonment
at Melun (1551—56). His more celebrated brother, Gaspard
de Coligny, the Admiral of France, became a Protestant
during his imprisonment after the fall of St. Quentiu
(1558).^ De Beze (Beza) tells us that as early as 1555,
Antoine de Bourbon, titular King of Navarre in right of
his wife Jeanne d'Albret, and next in succession to King
Henri ii. and his sons, had the new faith preached in the
chapel at Nerac, and that he asked a minister to be sent
to him from Geneva. His brother Louis, Prince of Conde,
also declared himself on the Protestant side. The wives
of the brothers Bourbon, Jeanne d'Albret and Eleanore de
Eoye, were more determined and consistent Protestants
than their husbands. The two brothers were among those
present at the assemblies in the Pre-aux-Clercs, where for
five successive evenings (May 13—17) more than five
thousand persons met to sing Clement Marot's Psalms.^
Calvin wrote energetically to all these great nobles, urging
them to declare openly on the side of the Gospel, and
* The best book on Ren^e is Rodocauchi, Rende de France, duchesse de
Ferrare (1896).
2 For the Chatillon brothers, see Whitehead, Gaspard de Coligny,
Admiral of France (London, 1905).
2 The singing of Clement Marot's version of the Psalms was not dis-
tinctively Protestant. The hrst edition of the translation, including thirty-
Psalms, appeared in Paris in 1541 and in Geneva in 1542. The Geneva
edition had an appendix, entitled La maniere d'administrer les sacremcnts
scion la coutume de I'Eglise ayicienne et comme on Vohserve a Geneve, and was
undoubtedly a Protestant book ; but the Paris edition contained instead
rhymed. versions of the Lord's Prayer, of the Apostles' Creed, and of the
angel's salutation to the Virgin. The book was a great favourite with
Francis i., who is said to have sung some of the Psalms on his deathbed. It
was very popular at the Court of Henri ii., where it became fashionable for
the courtiers to select a favourite Psalm, which the King permitted them
to call " their own." Henri's "own " was Ps. xlii., Comme un cerf altera
brame 02Jrts Veaxi courantc. He was a great huntsman. Catherine de
Medici's was Ps. vi. The Psalm- sin ^ang at the Pre-aux-Clercs, however,
was regarded as a manifestation against the Court, and d'Andelot was im-
prisoned for his persistent attendance. .
FRANCE RULED BY THE GUISES 173
protect their brethren in the faith less able to defend
themselves.
§ 9. France ruled hy the Guises.^
The successor of Henry il. was his son Francis IL, who
was fifteen years of age, and therefore entitled by French
law to rule in his own name. He was a youth feeble in
mind and in body, and devotedly attached to his young and
accomplished wife, Mary Queen of Scots. She believed
naturally that her husband could not do better than
entrust the government of the kingdom to her uncles,
Charles the Cardinal of Lorraine, and Francis the Duke de
Guise. The Cardinal had been Henry n.'s most trusted
Minister ; and his brother was esteemed to be the best
soldier in France. When the Parlement of Paris, according
to ancient custom, came to congratulate the King on his
succession, and to ask to whom they were to apply in
affairs of State, they were told by the King that they were
to obey the Cardinal and the Duke " as himself." The
Constable de Montmorency and the favourite, Diane de
Poitiers, were sent from the Court, and the Queen-Mother,
Catherine de' Medici, that " shopkeeper's daughter," as the
young Queen called her, found herself as devoid of influ-
ence as she had been during the lifetime of her husband.
The Cardinal of Lorraine had been the chief adviser of
that policy of extirpating the Protestants to which the late
King had devoted himself, and it was soon apparent that
^ The family of Guise, who played such a leading part in French history
from the reign of Henry ii. on to the downfall of the League, became French
in the person of Claude, the fifth son of Rene, Duke of Lorraine, who
inherited the lands of his father which were situated in Fiance. Francis i.
had loaded him with honours and lands.- The family had always been
devoted to the Papacy, and had profited by their devotion. The brother of
Claude, Jean, had been made a Cardinal when he was twenty, and had
accumulated in his own person an immense nunfber of benefices. These
descended to his nephews, Charles, who was first Cardinal of Guise and then
Cardinal of Lorraine, and Louis, who was Cardinal of Guise. The accumu-
lated benefices enjoyed by Charles amounted to over 300,000 livres. The
Guises (lid not serve the Roman Church for notliing.
i
174 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
it would be continued by the new government. The pitj-
cess against Antoine du Bourg and his fellow -members of
the Parlement of Paris who had dared to remonstrate
against the persecution, was pushed forward with all speed.
They were condemned to the stake, and the only mitigation
of sentence was that Du Bourg was to be strangled before
he was burnt. His fate provoked much sympathy. As
he was led to the place of execution the crowd pleaded
with him to recant. His resolute, dignified bearing made
a great impression ; and his dying speech, according to one
eye-witness, " did more harm to the Roman Church than a
hundred ministers could have done," and, according to
another, " made more converts among the French students
than all the books of Calvin." The persecutions of Pro-
testants of lower rank increased rather than diminished.
Police made descents on the houses in the Rue de Marais-
Saint-Germain and neighbouring streets.^ Spies were hired
to insinuate themselves into the confidence of the suspected
for the purpose of denouncing them. The Parlement of
Paris instituted four separate criminal courts for the sole
purpose of trying heretics brought before them. The
prisons were no sooner filled than they were emptied by
sentences which sent the condemned to the galleys or to
death. The government incited to persecution by new
declarations and edicts. It declared that houses in which
conventicles were held were to be razed to the ground
(Sept. 4th, 1559); that all who organised unlawful
assemblies were to be punished by death (Nov. 9th, 1559);
that nobles who had justiciary courts were to act according
to law in the matter of heresy, or to be deprived of their
justiciary rights (Feb. 1560). In spite of all this stern
^ The street Marais-Saint-Germain was QaWeApetite Geneve, because it was
supposed to be largely inhabited by Protestants. It was selected because
of its remoteness from the centre of Paris, and because it was partly under
the jurisdiction of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pr^s and of the Univer-
sity— two corporations excessively jealous of the infringements of their rights
of police. Of. Athanase Cocquerel fils, " Histoire d'une rue de Paris," in the
Bulletin historique ct litteraire de la socUU de I'histoire du jt'i'otestmitiii'ine
JrancoAs for 1866, pp. 185, 208.
FRANCE RULED BY THE GUISES 175
repressiou, the numbers of the Protestants increased, and
Calvin could declare that there were at least 300,000 in
France.
The character of Protestantism in Prance had been
changing. In the earlier years of the persecution they
had submitted meekly without thought of revolt, resigned
to their fate, rejoicing to suffer in the cause of Christ.
But under this rule of the Guises the question of resistance
was discussed. It could be said that revolt did not mean
revenge for injuries done to themselves. A foreign family
had overawed their King and imposed themselves on
Prance. The Princes of the Blood, Antoine de Bourbon
and his brother Louis de Conde, in whose veins ran - the
blood of Saint Louis, who were the natural leaders of the
people, were flouted by the Guises. The inviolability of
Parleinent had been attacked in the execution of Antoine
du Bourg, and the justiciary rights of great nobles were
threatened simply in order to extirpate " those of the
religion." They believed that Prance was full of men who
had no good will to the tyranny of the " foreigners."
They consulted their brethren in exile, and Calvin himself,
on the lawfulness and expediency of an armed insurrection.
The refugees favoured the plan. Calvin denounced it.
" If one drop of blood is shed in such a revolt, rivers will
flow ; it is better that we all perish than cause such a scandal
to the cause of Christ and His Evangel." Some of the
Protestants were not to be convinced. They only needed
a leader. Their natural head was the King of Navarre ;
but Antoine de Bourbon was too unstable. Louis de
Conde, his brother, was sounded.^ It is said that he
promised to come forward if the enterprise was confined
to the seizure of the Guises, and if it was successful
in effecting this. A Protestant gentleman, Godefroy de
Barry, Seigneur de la Renaudie, became temporary leader.
^ Le$ Me7noires du 2)rince de Cond^ (The Hague, 1743) ; Dnc d'Aumale,
Histoire des Frinces dc Conde pendant les xvi^^ et xvii'^'*' s^itchs, i. 57
(Paris, 1863-64 ; Eng. trans., London, 1872); Armstrong, The French
Wars of Religion (London, 1892).
176 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
He had wrongs to avenge. He had been condemned by
the Farlement of Dijon (Burgundy), had escaped to
Geneva, and had been converted there ; his brother-in-law,
Gaspard de Heu, of Metz, had been strangled by the Guises
in the castle of Vmcennes without form of trial. A
number of gentlemen and nobles promised their assistance.
The conspirators swore to undertake nothing against the
King ; the enterprise was limited to the arrest of the
Guises. News of the project began to leak out. Every
information went to show that the Guises were the objects
of attack. The Court was moved from Blois to Amboise,
which was a fortified city. More precise information filtered
to headquarters. The Duke of Guise captured some small
bands of conspirators, and de la Eenaudie himself was slain
in a skirmish. The Guises took summary vengeance. Their
prisoners were often slaughtered when caught ; or were
tied hand and foot and thrown into the Loire. Others
were hurried through a form of trial. So many gallows
were needed that there was not wood enough, and the
prisoners were hung from the doors and battlements of the
castle of Amboise. The young King and Queen, with
their ladies, walked out after' dinner to feast their eyes on
the dead bodies.
Even before the Conspiracy of Amboise had run its
length, members of the Court had begun to protest against
the religious policy of the Guises. Catherine de' Medici
had talked the matter over with the Admiral Coligny, had
been told by him that the religious persecutions were at
the bottom of the troubles in the kingdom, and had listened
to his proposal that all such should be suspended until the
meeting of a Council. The result was that government
decided to pardon those accused of heresy if they would
promise for the future to live as good Catholics. The
brutalities of the methods by which the sharers in the
foolishly planned and feebly executed Conspiracy of
Amboise were punished increased the state of disorder in
the kingdom, and the hatred against the Guises found
vent in an Epistle sent to the Tiger of France, in which the
FRANCE RULED BY THE GUISES 177
Duke is addressed as a " mad tiger, a venomous viper, a
sepulchre of abominations."
Catherine de' Medici deemed the opportunity favour-
able for exercising her influence. She contrived to get
Michel de I'Hopital appointed as Chancellor, knowing that
he was opposed to the sanguinary policy pursued. He was
able to inspire the Edict of Komorantin (May 18th, 1560),
which made the Bishops judges of the crime of heresy,
imposed penalties on false accusers, and left the punish-
ment to be bestowed on attendance at conventicles in the
hands of the presidents of the tribunals. Then, with the
help of the Chancellor, Catherine managed to get an
Assembly of the Notables summoned to meet at Fountaine-
bleau. There, many of the members advocated a cessation
of the religious persecution. One Archbishop, Marillac of
Vienne, and the Bishops of Orleans and Valence, asserted
boldly that the religious disorders were really caused by
the scandals in the Church ; spoke against severe repression
until a Council, national or general, had been held ; and
hinted that the services of the Guises were not indispens-
able. At thq beginning of the second session Coligiiy spoke.
He had the courage to make himself the representative of
the Huguenots, as the Protestants now began to be nick-
named. He attacked boldly the religious policy of the
Guises, charged them with standing between the >King and
loyal subjects, and declared that the persecuted were
Christians who asked for nothing but to be allowed to
worship God as the Gospel taught them. He presented a
petition to the King from the Protestants asserting their
loyalty, begging that the persecution should ceaKe, and
asking that " temples " might be assigned for their worship.
The petition was imsigned, but Caligny declared that fifty
thousand names could be obt-ained in Normandy alone.
The Duke of Guise spoke with great violence, but the
more politic Cardinal induced him to agree with the other
members to call a meeting of the States General of
France, to be held on the 10th of December 1560.
Shortly after the Notables had dispersed, word came
12
*^
178 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
of another conspiracy, in which not only the Bonrbon
Princes, but also the Constable Montmorency were said to
be implicated. Disturbances broke out in Provence and
Dauphine. The Guises went back to their old policy of
violence. The King of Navarre and the Prince of
Cond^ were summoned by the King to appear before him
to justify themselves. Although well warned of what
might happen, they obeyed the summons, and presented
themselves unattended by armed men. Conde was seized
and imprisoned. He was condemned to death, and his
execution was fixed for the 1 0th of December. The King
of Navarre was left at liberty, but was closely watched ;
and more than one attempt was made to assassinate him.
It was vaguely believed that the Cardinal of Lorraine had
resolved to get rid of all the leaders of the Huguenots by
death or imprisonment.
I While these terrifying suggestions were being whispered,
' the young King fell ill, and died suddenly. This ended the
rule of the Guises, and the French Protestants breathed
freely again.
" Did you ever read or hear," said Calvin in a letter
to Sturm, " of anything more opportune than the death of
the King ? The evils had reached an extremity for which
there was no remedy, when suddenly God shows Himself
from heaven. He who pierced the eye of the father has
now stricken the ear of the son."
§ 10. Catherine de' Medici becomes Regent.
In the confusion which resulted, Catherine recognised
that at last the time had come when she could gratify the
one strong passion which possessed her — the passion to
govern. Charles ix. was a boy of ten. A Eegent was
essential. Antoine de Bourbon, as the first Prince of the
Blood, might have claimed the position ; but Catherine first
terrified him with what might be the fate of Cond^, and
then proposed that the Constable Montmorency and himself
should be her principal advisers. The facile Antoine
CATHERINE DE' MEDICI BECOMES REGENT 179
accepted the situation : the Constable was recalled to the
Court ; Louis de Cond^ was released from prison. His
imprisonment had made a deep impression all over France.
The Protestants believed that he had suffered for their sakes.
Hymns of prayer had been sung during his captivity, and
songs of thanksgiving greeted his release.^
** Le pauvre Chrestien, qui endure
Prison, pour verite ;
Le Prince, en captivite dure
Sans I'avoir merite
Au plus fort de leurs peines entendent
Tes oeuvres tous parfaits,
Et gloire et louange te rendent
De tes merveilleux faits."
This was sung all over France during Conde's imprison-
ment ; after his release the tone varied :
" Resjouissez vous en Dieu
Fideles de chacun lieu ; - .
Car Dieu pour nous a mande (envoy6)
Le bon prince de Conde ;
Et vous nobles protestans
Princes, seigneurs attestans ;
Car Dieu pour nous a mande .
Le bon prince de Conde.'
Catherine de' Medici was forty-one years of age when
she became the Eegent of France.^ Her life had been hard.
Born in 1519, the niece of Pope Clement vn., she was
married to Henry of France in 1534. She had been a
neglected wife all the days of her married life. For ten
years she had been childless,^ and her sonnets breathe the
^ Le Chansonnier Huguenot dii xvi" siecle (Paris, 1871), pp. 204, 245.
2Buchot, Catherine de M^dicis {Fat\s, 1899); Edith Sichel, Catherine
de' Medici and the French Reformation (London, 1905).
3 Catherine's children were— "Francis il., 1544-60 ; Elizabeth (married
to Philip II. of Spain iul559), 1545-68 ; Claude (m. to Charles ill., Duke of
Lorraine (1558), 1547-75 ; Louis, Duke of Orleans, 1548-50; Charles ix.,
1550-74 ; Henri iii. (first Duke of Orleans, then Duke of Anjou), 1551-89 ;
Francif] (Duke of Aleuvon, then Duke of Anjou), 1551-81 ; Marguerite
180 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
prayer of Eachel — Give me children, or else I die. During
Henry's absence with the army in 1552, he had grudgingly
appointed her Eegent, and she had shown both ability and
patience in acquiring a knowledge of all the details of
government. After the defeat of Saint-Quentin she for
once earned her husband's gratitude and praise by the way
in which she had promptly persuaded the Parliament to
grant a subsidy of 300,000 livres. These incidents were
her sole apprenticeship in the art of ruling. She had always
been a great eater, walker, and rider.^ Her protruding eyes
and her bulging forehead recalled the features of her grand-
uncle, Pope Leo x. She had the taste of her family for art
and display. Her strongest intellectual force was a robust,
hard, and narrow common sense which was responsible both
for her success and for her failures. She can scarcely be
called immoral ; it seemed rather that she was utterly
destitute of any moral sense whatsoever.
The difficulties which confronted the Eegent were great,
both at home and abroad. The question of questions was
the treatment to be given to her Protestant subjects. She
seems from the first to have, been in favour of a measure
of toleration ; but the fanatically Eoman Catholic party
was vigorous in France, especially in Paris, and was ably
led by the Guises ; and Philip of Spain had made the
suppression of the Eeformation a matter of international
policy.
Meanwhile Catherine had to face the States General,
summoned by the late King in August 1560. While the
Guises were still in power, strict orders had been given to
see that none but ardent Eomanists should be elected ; but
the excitement of the times could not be restrained by any
management. It was nearly half a century since a King
of Prance had invited a declaration of the opinions of his
(married Henri iv.), 1552-1615 ; and twins who died in the year of their
birth, Victorie and Jeanne, b. 1556.
^ Some say that Catherine either invented or made fashionable the
modern ladies' side-saddle ; during the Middle Ages ladies rode astride, or on
pillion, or seated sideways on liorseback with their feet on a board which
was suspended from the front and rear uf the saddle. ,
CATHERINE DE MEDICI BECOMES REGENT 181
subjects ; the last meeting of the States General had been
in 1484.^ Catherine watched the elections, and the expres-
sion of sentiments which they called forth. She saw that
the Protestants were active. Calvinist ministers traversed
the West and the South almost unhindered, encouraging the
people to assert their liberties. They were even perniitled
to address some of the assemblies met to elect represent-
atives. A minister, Charles Dalbiac, expounded the Con-
fession of Faith to the meeting of the nobles at Angers, and
showed how the Eoman Church had enslaved and changed
the whole of the Christian faith and practice. In other
places it was said that Antoine de Bourbon had no right to
allow Catherine to assume the Eegency, and that he ought
to be forced to take his proper place. The air seemed full
of menaces against the Kegent and in favour of the Princes
of the Blood. Catherine hastened to place the King of
Navarre in a position of greater dignity. She shared the
Eegency nominally with the premier Prince of the Blood,
who was Lieutenant-General of France. If Antoiiie had
been a man of resolution, he might have insisted on a large
share in the government of the country, but his easy, care-
less disposition made him plastic in the hands of Catherine,
and she could write to her daughter that he was very
obedient, and issued no order without her permission.
The Estates met at Orleans on the 13 th of December.
The opening speech by the Chancellor, Michel d'Hopital,
showed that the Eegent and her councillors were at least
inclined to a policy of tolerance. The three orders (Clergy,
Nobles, and Third Estate), he said, had been summoned to
find remedies for the divisions which existed within the
kingdom ; and these, he believed, were due to religion. He
could not help recognising that religious beliefs, goou or
bad, tended to excite burning passions. He could not avoid
seeing that a common religion was a stricter bond of unity
than belonging to the same race or living under the same
laws. Might they not all wait for the decision of a General
Council? Might they not cease to use the irritating
1 G. Picot, Histoirc dcs £tats Generaux, ii. (Paris, 1872).
182 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
epithets of Lutherans, Huguenots, Papists, and remember
that they were all good Christians. The spokesmen oi' the
three orders were heard at the second sitting. Dr. Quiatin,
one of the Eegents of the University of Paris, voiced the
Clergy. He enlarged against the proposals which were to be
brought forward by the other two orders to despoil the
revenues of the Church, to attempt its reform by the civil
power, and to grant toleration and even liberty of worship
to heretics. Coligny begged the Eegent to note that
Quintin had called subjects of the King heretics, and the
spokesman of the Clergy apologised. Jacques de Silly,
Baron de Eochefort, and Jean Lange, an advocate of
Bordeaux, who spoke for the Nobles and for the Third
Estate, declaimed against the abuses of ecclesiastical courts,
and the avarice and ignorance of the clergy.
At the sitting on Jan. 1st, 1561, each of the three
Estates presented a written list of grievances {cahiei's).
That of the Third Estate was a memorable and important
document in three hundred and fifty-four articles, and
reveals, as no other paper of the time does, the evils result-
ing from absolutist and aristocratic government in France.
It asked for complete toleration in matters of religion, for
a Eeformation of the Church in the sense of giving a large
extension of power to the laity, for uniformity in judicial
procedure, for the abolition or curtailment of powers in
signorial courts, for quinquennial meetings of the Estates
General, and demanded that the day and place of the next
meeting should be fixed before the end of the present sitting.
The Nobles were divided on the question of toleration, and
presented three separate papers. In the first, which came
from central France, stern repression of the Protestant faith
was demanded ; in the second, coming from the nobles of
the Western provinces, complete toleration was claimed ;
in the third it was asked that both parties should be made
to keep the peace, and that only preachers and pastors be
punished. The list presented by the Clergy, like those of
the other two orders, insisted upon the reform of the Church ;
but it took the line of urging the abolition of the Concordat,
CATHERINE DE' MEDICI BECOMES REGENT 183
and a return to the provisions of the Pragmatic Sanction
of Bourges.
The Government answered these lists of grievances
presented by an edict and an ordinance. In the edict
(Jan. 28th, 1561) the King ordered that all prosecutions
for religion should cease, and that all prisoners should be
released, with an admonition " to live in a catholic manner "
for the future. The ordinance (dated Jan. 31st, but not
completed till the following August), known as the Ordi-
nance of OrUans, was a very elaborate document. It
touched upon almost all questions brought forward in the
lists of grievances, and enacted various reforms, bolli civil
and ecclesiastic — all of which were for the most part
evaded in practice. The Estates were adjourned until the
1st of May.
The Huguenots had gained a suspension of persecution,
if not toleration, by the edict of Jan. 28th, and the dis-
position of the Government made them hope for still
further assistance. Eefugees came back in great numbers
from Switzerland, Germany, England, and even from Italy.
The number ^ of Protestant congregations increased, and
Geneva provided the pastors. The edict did not give
liberty of worship, but the Protestants acted as if it did.
This roused the wrath of the more fanatically disposed por-
tion of the Eoman Catholic population. Priests and
monks fanned the flames of sectarian bitterness. The
Government was denounced, and anti-Protestant riots dis-
turbed the country. When the Huguenots -of Paris at-
tempted to revive the psalm-singings in the Pre-aux-Clercs,
they were .mobbed, and beaten with sticks by the populace.
This led to reprisals in those parts of the country where
the Huguenots were in a majority. In some towns the
churches were invaded, the images torn down, and the
relics burnt. The leaders strove to, restrain their fol-
lowers.^ Calvin wrote energetically from Geneva against
the lawlessness :
1 Jeanne d'Albret wrote remonstrating strongly ; cf. Lettres d'Antoine df
Bourbon et dc Jeanne d'A/hrcf, pp. 233/
184 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
"God has never enjoined on any one to destroy idols,
save on every man in his own house or on those placed in
authority in public places. . . . Obedience is better than
sacrifice ; we must look to what it is lawful for us to do,
and must keep ourselves within bounds."
At the Court at Fontainebleau, Eenee, Duchess of
Ferrara, and the Princess of Conde were permitted by the
Regent to have worship in their rooms after the Reformed
rite ; and Coligny had in his household a minister from
Geneva, Jean Raymond Merhn, to whose sermons outsiders
were not only admitted but invited. These things gave
great offence to the Constable Montmorency, who was a
strong Romanist. He was still more displeased when
Monluc, Bishop of Valence, preached in the State apart-
ments before the boy King and the Queen Mother. He
thought it was undignified for a Bishop to preach, and he
believed that Monluc's sermons contained something very
like Lutheran theology. He invited the Duke of Guise
and Saint- Andre, both old enemies, to supper (April 16th,
1561), and the three pleged themselves to save the
Romanism of France. This , union was afterwards known
as the Triumvirate.
Meanwhile religious disturbances were increasing.
The Huguenots demanded the right to have " temples "
granted to them or built at their own expense ; and in
many places they openly gathered for public worship and
for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. They frequently
met armed to protect themselves from attack. The
Government at length interfered, and by an edict (July
1561) prohibited, under penalty of confiscation of property,
all conventicles, public or private, whether the worshippers
were armed or unarmed, where sermons were made and
the sacraments celebrated in any other fashion than that
of the Catholic Church. The edict declared, on the other
hand, that magistrates were not to be too zealous ; persons
who laid false information were to be severely punished ;
and all attacks on houses were forbidden. It was evidently
meant to conciliate both parties. Coligny did not discon-
CATHERINE DE' MEDICI BECOMES REGENT 185
tinue Che services in his apartments, and wrote to his co-
religionists that they had nothing to fear so long as they
worshipped in private houses. Jeanne d'Albret declared
herself openly a Protestant; and as she travelled from
Nerac to Fontainebleau she restored to the Huguenots
churches which the magistrates had taken from them in
obedience to the edict of July.
The prorogued meeting of the States General did not
assemble until the 1st of August, and even then representa-
tives of two orders only were present. An ecclesiastical
synod was sitting at Poissy (opened July 28th), and the
clerical representatives were there. It was the 27t}i
of August before the three orders met together in
presence of the King and the members of his Council
at 'Saint-Germain. The meeting had been called for
the purpose of discussing the question of national
finance ; but it was impossible to ignore the religious
question.
In their cahiers, both the Nobles and the Third Estate
advocated complete toleration and the summonintr a
National Council. The financial proposals of the Third
Estate were ^thoroughgoing. After a statement of the
national indebtedness, and a representation that taxation
had reached its utmost limits, they proposed that money
should be obtained from the superfluity of ecclesiastical
wealth. In their cahier of Jan. 1st, the Third Estate had
sketched a civil constitution for the French Church ; they
now went further, and proposed that all ecclesiastical
revenues should be nationalised, and tliat the clergy should
be paid by the State. They calculated that a surplus of
seventy-two million livres would result, and proposed that
forty-two milHons should be set aside to liquidate the
national debt. . "
This bold proposal was impracticable in the condition
of the kingdom. The Parlement of Paris regarded it as
a revolutionary attack on the rights of property, and it
alienated them for ever from the Eeformation movement ;
but it enabled the Government to wring from the alarmed
186 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
Churchmen a subsidy of sixteen million livres, to be paid
in six annual instalments.
§ 11. The Conference at Poissy.
It was scarcely possible, in view of the Pope and
Philip of Spain, to assemble a National Council, but the
Government had already conceived the idea of a meeting of
theologians, which would be such an assembly in all but
the name. They had invited representatives of the Pro-
testant ministers (July 25th) to attend the synod of the
clergy sitting at Poissy. The invitation had been accepted,
and the Government intended to give an air of unusual
solemnity to the meeting. The King, surrounded by his
mother, his brothers, and the Princes of the Blood, presided
as at a sitting of the States General. The Chancellor, in
the King's name, opened the session with a remarkable
speech, in which he set forth the advantages to be gained
from religious union. He addressed the assembled bishops
and Eoman Catholic theologians, assuring them that they
ought to have no scruples in meeting the Protestant
divines. The latter were not heretics like the old Mani-
cheans or Arians. They accepted the Scriptures as the
Kule of Paith, the Apostles' Creed, the four principal
Councils and their Creeds (the symbols of Nicea, Constan-
tinople, and Chalcedon). The main difference between
them was that the Protestants wished the Church to be
reformed according to the primitive pattern. They had
given proof of their sincerity by being content to die for
their faith.
The Eeformers were represented by twelve ministers,
among whom were Morel of Paris ; Nicolas des Gallars,
minister of the French Protestant Church in London, and
by twenty laymen. Their leader was Theodore de Beze
(Beza), a man of noble birth, celebrated as a Humanist, a
brilliant writer and controversialist, whom Calvin, at the
request of Antoine de Bourbon, Catherine de' Medici, and
Coligny, had commissioned to represent him. De Bcze
THE CONFERENCE AT POISSY 187
was privately presented to the King and the Regent by
the King of Navarre and by the Prince de Conde, and his
learning, presence, and stately courtesy made a great im-
pression upon the Court. He had been born in the same
year as the Regent (1519), and had thrown away very
briUiant prospects to become a minister of the Reformed
Church.
The meeting was held in the refectory of the nuns of
Poissy.i The King and his suite were placed at ore end
of the hall, and the Romanist bishops and theologians were
arranged by the walls on the two sides. After the Chai.-
cellor had finished his speech, the representatives of the
Protestants were introduced by the Duke of Guise, in
command of an escort of the King's archers. Tliey were
placed in front of a barrier which separated them from the
Romanist divines. "There come the dogs of Geneva,"
said the Cardinal of Tournon as they entered the hall.
The speech of de Beze, delivered on the first day (Sept.
7th) of the Colloquy, as it came to be called, made a great
impression. He expounded with clearness of thought and
precision of language the creed of his Church, showing
where it agreed and where it differed from that of the
Roman Catholic. The gravity and the charm of his
eloquence compelled attention, and it was not until he
began to criticise with frank severity the doctrine of tran-
substantiation that he provoked murmurs of dissent. The
speech must have disappointed Catherine. It had made
no attempt to attenuate the differences between the two
confessions, and held out no hopes of a reunion of the
Churches. i u
The Cardinal of Lorraine was charged to reply on be-
half of the Roman Catholic party (Sept. 1 6th). His speech
was that of a strong partisan,. and dealt principally with
the two points of the authority of the Church m matters
of faith and usage, and the doctrine -of the Sacrament of
iFor the Colloquy of Poissy, cf. Ruble, "Le Colloque de Poissy" (in
Mancrires de la Socm de Vhistolre de Paris et de ^'^^^/^^//''^^^^'J^^- ^^•»
Paris 1889) ; Klii'ffcl, Lc colloque de Pois^nf (Pans and Metz, 1867).
188 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
the Holy Supper. There was no attempt at concilia-
tion.
Three days after (Sept. 19th), Cardinal Ippolito d'Esto
arrived at Saint-Germain, accompanied by a numerous suite,
among whom was Laynez, the General of the Society of
Jesus. He had been sent by the Pope, legate a latere, to
end, if possible, the conference at Poissy, and to secure the
goodwill of the French Government for the promulgation of
the decrees of the Council of Trent. He so far prevailed that
the last two sittings of the conference (Sept. 24th, 26th)
were with closed doors, and were scenes of perpetual recri-
minations. Laynez distinguished himself by his vitupera-
tive violence. The Protestant ministers were " wolves,"
" foxes," " serpents," " assassins." Catherine persevered.
She arranged a conference between five of the more liberal
Eoman Catholic clergy and five Protestant ministers. It
met (Sept. 30th, Oct. 1st), and managed to draft a formula
about the Holy Supper which was at once rejected by the
Bishops of the French Church (Oct. 9th).
Out of this Colloquy of Poissy came the edict of January
17th, 1562, which provided that Protestants were to sur-
render all the churches and ecclesiastical buildings they
had seized, and prohibited them from meeting for public
worship, whether within a building or not, inside the walls
of any town. On the other hand, they were to have the
right to assemble for public worship anywhere outside
walled towns, and meetings in private houses within the
walls were not prohibited. Thus the Protestants of France
secured legal recognition for the first time, and enjoyed the
right to worship according to their conscience. They were
not satisfied — they could scarcely be, so long as they were
kept outside the walls ; but their leaders insisted on their
accepting the edict as a reasonable compromise. " If the
liberty promised us in the edict lasts," Calvin wrote, " the
Papacy will fall to the ground of itself." Within one year
the Huguenots of France found themselves freed from per-
secution, and in the enjoyment of a measured liberty of
public worship. It can scarcely be doubted that they
THE MASSACRE OF VASSY 189
owed this to Catherine de' Medici. She was a child of the
Eenaissance, and was naturally on the side of free thought ;
and she was, besides, at this time persuaded that the Huf^ue-
nots had the future on their side. In the coming strucrcrle
they regarded this edict as their charter, and frequently
demanded its restitution and enforcement.
Catherine de' Medici had shown both courage and con-
stancy in her attempts at conciliation. To the remon-
strances of Philip of Spain she had replied that she meant
to be master in her own house ; and when the Constable
de Montmorency had threatened k) leave the Court, he had
been told that he might do as he pleased. But she was
soon to be convinced that she had overestimated the strength
of the Protestants, and that she could never count on the
consistent support of their nominal leader, the vain and
vacillating Antoine de Bourbon. Had Jeanne d'Albret
been in her husband's place, things might have been
different.
The edict of January 17th, 1562, had exasperated
the Komanists without satisfying the mass of the
Protestants. The marked increase in the numbers of
Protestant cohgregations, and their not very strict observ-
ance of the limitations of the edict, had given rise to
disturbances in many parts of the country. Everytliing
seemed to tend towards civil war. The spark which
kindled the conflagration was the Massacre of Vassy.^
§ 12. The Massacre of Vassy.
The Duke of Guise, travelling from Joinville to Paris,
accompanied by his brother, the Cardinal of Guise, his
children and his wife, and escorted by a large, armed retinue,
halted at Yassy (March 1st, 1562). It was a Sunday, and
the Duke wished to hear- Mass. Scarcely a gunshot from
the church was a barn where the Protestants (in defiance
of the edict, for Vassy was a walled town) were holding a
^ Lavisse, * ' Le Massacre, fait h. Vassy " in Grandes Scenes hisioriques du
xvie sieele (Paris, 1886).
190 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
service. The congregation, barely a year old, was numer jus
and zealous. It was an eyesore to Antoinette de Bourbon,
the mother of the Guises, who lived in the neig-hbourino-
chateau of Joinville, and saw her dependants attracted by
the preaching at Yassy. The Duke was exasperated at
seeing men whom he counted his subjects defying him in
his presence. He sent some of his retainers to order the
worshippers to quit the place. They were received by
cries of '• Papists ! idolaters ! " When they attempted to
force an entrance, stones began to fly, and the Duke was
struck. The barn was rushed, the worshippers fusilladed,
and before the Duke gave orders to cease firing, sixty-three
of the six or seven hundred Protestants were slain, and
over a hundred wounded.
The news of the massacre spread fast ; and while it
exasperated the Huguenots, the Eomanists hailed it as a
victory. The Constable de Montmorency and the Marshal
Saint Andre went out to meet the Duke, and the Guises
entered Paris in triumph, escorted by more than three
thousand armed men. The Protestants began arming
themselves, and crowded to Paris to place themselves under
the orders of the Prince of Conde. It was feared that the
two factions would fight in the streets.
The Eegent with the King retired to Fontainebleau.
She was afraid of the Triumvirs (Montmorency, the Duke
of Guise, and Marshal Saint-Andre), and she invited the
Prince de Conde to protect her and her children. Conde
lost this opportunity of placing himself and his co-religion-
ists in the position of being the support of the throne.
The Triumvirate, with Antoine de Bourbon, who now seemed
to be their obedient servant, marched on Fontainebleau,
and compelled the King and the Queen Mother to return
to Paris. Catherine beheved that the Protestants had
abandoned her, and turned to the Eomanists.
The example of massacre given at Yassy was followed
in many places where the Eomanists were in a majority.
In Paris, Sens, Eouen, and elsewhere, the Protestant places
of worship were attacked, and many of the worshippers
THE BEGINNING OF THE WARS OF RELIGION 191
slain. At Toulouse, the Protestants shut themselves up in
the Capitol, and were besieged by the Eomanists. They
at last surrendered, trusting to a ])romise that they would
be allowed to leave the town in safety. The promise was
not kept, and three thousand men, women, and children
were slain in cold blood. This slaughter, in -violation of
oath, wa^ celebrated by the Roman Catholics of Toulouse
in centenary festivals, which were held in 1662, in 1762,
and would have been celebrated in 1862 had the Govern-
ment of Napoleon in. not interfered to forbid it.
These massacres provoked reprisals. The Huguenots
broke into the Romanist churches, tore down the ima<^e8.
defaced the altars, and destroyed the relics.
§ 13. The Beginning of the Wars of Religion.
' Gradually the parties faced each other with the Duke
of Guise and the Constable Montmorency at the head of
the Romanists, and the Prince of Conde and Admiral
Coligny at the head of the Huguenots. France became
the scene of a civil conflict, where religious fanaticism
added its cruelties to the ordinary barbarities of warfare.
The Venetian Ambassador, writing home to the chiefs
of his State, was of opinion that this first war of religion
prevented France from becoming Protestant. - Th^ cruelties
of the Romanists had disgusted a large number of French-
men, who, though they had no great sympathy for the Pro-
testant faith, would have gladly allied themselves with a
policy of toleration. The Huguenot chiefs themselves saw
that the desecration of churches did not serve the cause
they had at heart. Calvin and de Beze wrote, energetically
urging their followers to refrain from attacks on churches,
images, and relics. But it was- all to no purpose. At
Orleans, Coligny and Conde heard that their men were
assaulting the Church of the Holy Spirit. They hastened
there, and Conde saw a Huguenot soldier on the roof of the
church about to cast an image to the ground. Seizing an
arquebus, he pointed it at the man, and ordered him to
192 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
desist and come down. The soldier did not stop his work
for an instant. " Sire," he said, " have patience with me
until I destroy this idol, and then let me die if it be your
pleasure." When men were content to die rather than
refrain from iconoclasm, it was in vain to expect to check
it. Somehow the slaughter of men made less impression
than the sack of churches, and moderate men came to the
opinion that if the Huguenots prevailed, they would be as
intolerant as the Eomanists had been. The rising tide of
sympathy for the persecuted Protestants was checked by
these deeds of violence.
The progress of the war was upon the whole unfavour-
able to the Huguenots, and in the beginning of 15^3 both
parties were exhausted. The Constable Montmorency had
been captured by the . Huguenots, and the Prince de Conde
by the Eomanists. The Duke of Guise was shot from
behind by a Huguenot, and died six days later (Feb. 24t}i,
1563). The Marshal Saint-Andre and Antoine de Bourbon
had both died during the course of the war. Catherine de'
Medici was everywhere recognised as the head of the
Eomanist party. She no longer needed the Protestants to
counterbalance the Guises and the Constable. She could
now pursue her own policy.
From this time forward she was decidedly hostile to
the Huguenots. She had learned the resources and
popularity of the Eomanists. But she disliked fighting,
and the religious war was ruining France. Her
idea was that it would be necessary to tolerate the
Protestants, but impossible to grant them common
rights with the Eomanists. She applied herself to
win over the Prince de Conde, who was tired of his
captivity. Negotiations were opened. Catherine, the
Constable, Conde, and d'Andelot met at Orleans ; and,
after discussion, terms were agreed upon (March 7th), and
the Edict of Amboise incorporating them was published
(March 18 th, 1563).
Conde had asked for the restitution of the edict of
,Jan. 17th, 1561, and the strict enforcement of its terms.
THE BEGINNING OF THE WARS OF RELIGION 193
This was refused. The terms of the new edict were as
favourable for men of good birth, but not for others.
Conde had to undergo the reproaches of Coligny, that he
had secured rights for himself but had betrayed his
poorer brethren in the faith ; and that he had destroyed
by his signature more churches than the united forces of
Eomanism had done in ten years. Calvin spoke of him
as a poor Prince who had betrayed God for his own
vanity.
The truce, for it was no more than a truce, concluded
by the Edict of Aniboise lasted nearly five years. It
was broken by the Huguenots, who were suspicious that
Catherine was plotting with the Duke of Alva against them.
Alva was engaged in a merciless attempt to exterminate
the' Protestants of the Low Countries, and Catherine had
been at pains to provide provisions for his troops. The
Protestant leaders came to the desperate conclusion to
imitate the Triumvirate in 1561, and seize upon the
King's person. They failed, and their attempt began the
Second War of Eeligion. The indecisive battle of Saint -
Denis was fought on Nov. 10th, 1567, and the Constable
Montmorency fell in the fight. Both parties were almost
exhausted, and the terms of peace were the same as those
in the Edict of Amboise.
The close of this Second War of Religion saw a
determined attempt, mainly directed by the Jesuits, to
inspire the masses of France with enthusiasm for the
Roman Catholic Church. Eloquent preachers traversed
the land, who insisted on the antiquity of the Roman and
the novelty of the Protestant faith. Brotherhoods were
formed, and enrolled men of all sorts and conditions of
life sworn to bear arms against every kind of heresy. Out-
rages and assassinations of Protestants were common; and
the Government appeared. indifferent. It was, however, the
events in the Low Countries which, again alarmed the
Protestants. The Duke of Alva, who had begun his rule
there with an appearance of gentleness, had suddenly
seized and executed tlie Counts Egmont and Horn. He
194 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
had appointed a commission to judge the leaders and
accomplices in the earlier rising — a commission which
from its deeds gained for itself the name of the Tribunal
of Blood. Huguenot soldiers hastened to enrol themselves
in the levies which the Prince of Orange was raising for
the deliverance of his countrymen. But the Huguenot
leaders had other thoughts. Was Catherine meaning to
treat them as Alva had treated Egmont and Horn ? They
found that they were watched. The suspicion and
suspense became intolerable Coligny and Conde resolved
to take refuge in La Eochelle. As they passed through
the country they were joined by numbers of Huguenots,
and soon became a small army. Their followers were
eager to avenge the murders committed on those of their
faith, and pillage and worse marked the track of the
army. Cond^ and the Admiral punished some of their
marauding followers by death ; and this, says the chronicler,
" made the violence of the soldier more secret if not more
rare."
D'Andelot had collected his Normans and Bretons.
Jeanne d'Albret had roused her Gascons and the Pro-
vencals, and appeared with her son, Henry of Navarre, a
boy of fifteen, at the head of her troops. She published
a manifesto to justify her in taking up arms. In the
camp at La Eochelle she was the soul of the party, fired
their passions, and sustained their courage.^
In the war which followed, the Huguenots were
unfortunate. At the battle of Jarnac, Condi's cavalry
was broken by a charge on their flank made by tlic
German mercenaries under Tavannes. He fought till he
was surrounded and dismounted. After he had surrendered
he was brutally shot in cold blood. The Huguenots soon
rallied at Cognac, where the Queen of Navarre joined
^ Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jeanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), pp.
ZQ^ff. (Letter to Catherine de' Medici) ; pp. 322/". (letters to Protestants
outside La Roclielle). In her letter to Catherine Jeanne demands for the
Protestants liberty of worship and all the rights and privileges of
ordinary citizens : if these are not granted there must be war.
THE BEGINNING OF THE WARS OK RETJGION 195
them. She presented her son and her nephew, young
Henry of Conde, to the troops, and was received with
acclamations. Young Henry of Navarre was proclaimed
head of the party, and his cousin, Henry of Conde, a
boy of the same age, was associated with him. The w^ar
went on. The Battle of Moncontour ended in the most
disastrous defeat the Huguenots had ever sustained.
Catherine de' Medici thought that she had them at her
mercy, and proposed terms of submission which would
have left them liberty of conscience but denied the right
to worship. The heroic Queen of Navarre declared that
the names of Jeanne and Henry would never appear on a
treaty containing these conditions ; and Coligny, like his
contemporary, William the Silent, was never more
dangerous than after a defeat. The Huguenots announced
themselves ready to fight to the last ; and Catherine, to
her astonishment, saw them stronger than ever. An
armistice was arranged, and the Edict of Saint-Germain
(Aug. 8th, 1570) published the terms of peace. It was
more favourable to the Huguenots than any earlier one.
They were guaranteed freedom of conscience throughout
the whole kingdom. They had the liberty of public
worship in all places where it had been practised before
the war, in the suburbs of at least two towns in every
government, and in the residences of the- greaj) nobles.
Four strongly fortified towns — La liochelle, Montauban,
Cognac, and La Charite — were to be held by them as
pledges for at least two years. The King withdrew
himself from the Spanish alliance and the international
policy of the suppression of the Protestants. William
of Orange and Ludovic of Nassau were declared to be his
friends, in spite of the fact that they were the rebel
subjects of Philip of Spain and had assisted the Huguenots
in the late war.
^ After the peace of Saint-Germain, Coligny, now the
only great leader left to the Huguenots, lived far from
the Court at La Rochelle, acting as the guardian of tlie
two young Bourbon Princes, Henry of Navarre and Henry
196 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
of Conde. He occupied himself in securiDg for the
Reformed the advantages they had won in the recent
treaty of peace.
Catherine de' Medici had begun to think of strengthen-
ing herself at home and abroad by matrimonial alliances.
She wished one of her sons, whether the Duke of Anjou
or the Duke of Alen^on it mattered little to her, to marry
EHzabeth of England, and her daughter Marguerite to
espouse the young King of Navarre. Both designs
meant that tlie Huguenots must be conciliated. They
were in no liurry to respond to her advances. Both
Coligny and Jeaune d'Albret kept themselves at a distance
from the Court. Suddenly the young King, Charles ix.,
seemed to awaken to his royal position. He had been
hitherto entirely submissive to his mother, expending his
energies now in hunting, now in lock-making ; but, if one
can judge from what awakened him, cherishing a sullen
grudge against Philip of Spain and his pretensions to guide
the policy of Roman Catholic Europe.
Pope Pius V. had made Cosmo de' Medici, the ruler of
Florence, a Grand Duke, and Philip of Spain and
Maximilian of Austria had protested. Cosmo sent an
agent to win the German Protestants to side with him
against Maximilian, and to engage the Dutch Protestants
to make trouble in the Netherlands. Charles saw the
opportunity of gratifying his grudge, and entered eagerly
into the scheme. His wishes did not for the time interfere
with his mother's plans. If her marriage ideas were to
succeed, she must break with Spain. Coligny saw the
advantages which might come to his fellow-believers in
the Netherlands — help in money from Italy and with
troops from France. He resolved to make his peace with
Catherine, respond to her advances, and betake himself to
Court. He was graciously received, for Catherine wished
to make use of him ; was made a member of the Council,
received a gift of one hundred and fifty thousand livres,
and, although a heretic, was put into possession of an
Abbey whose revenues amounted to twenty thousand livres
THE BEGINNING OF THE WARS OF RELIGION 197
a year. The Protestant chiefs were respectfully listened
to when they stated grievances, and these were promptly
put right, even at the risk of exasperating the Eomanists.
The somewhat unwilling consent of Jeanne d'Albret was
won to the marriage of her son with Marguerite, and she
herself came to Paris to settle the terms of contract.
There she was seized with pleurisy, and died — an irreparable
loss to the Protestant cause. Catherine's home policy had
been successful.
But Elizabeth of England was not to be enticed either
into a French marriage or a stable French alliance, and
Catherine de' Medici saw that her son's scheme might lead
to France being left to confront Spain alone ; and the Spain
of the sixteenth century played the part of Russia in the
end of the nineteenth — fascinating the statesmen of the day
with its gloomy, mysterious, incalculable power. She felt
that she must detach Charles at whatever cost from his
scheme of flouting Philip by giving assistance to the
Protestants of the Low Countries. Coligny was in her
way — recognised to be the greatest statesman in France,
enthusiastically bent on sending French help to his
struggling co-religionists, and encouraging Charles IX.
Coligny must be removed. The Guises were at deadly
feud with him, and would be useful in putting him out of
the way. The Ambassador of Florence reported signifi-
cantly conferences between Catherine and the Duchess de
Nemours, the mother of the Guises (July 23rd, 1572).
The Queen had secret interviews with Maureval, a
professional bravo, who drew a pension as " tueur
du Roy."
Nothing could be done until Henry, now King of
Navarre by his mother's death, was safely mariied to
Marguerite. The wedding took place on August 18th,
1572. On Friday (Aug." 22nd), between ten and eleven
o'clock, Coligny left the Louvre to return to his lodging.
The assassin was stationed in a house belonging to a
j retainer of the Guises, at a grated window concealed by a
^curtain. The Admiral was walking slowly, reading a letter.
198 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
Suddenly a shot carried away the index finger of his right
hand and wounded his left arm. He calmly pointed to the
window from whence the shot had come ; and some of his
suite rushed to the house, but found nothing but a smoking
arquebus. The news reached the King when he was play-
ing tennis. He became pallid, threw down his racquet,
and went to his rooms.
Catherine closeted herself with the Duke of Anjou to
discuss a situation which was fraught with terror.^
§ 1 4. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Paris was full of Huguenot gentlemen, drawn from all
parts of the country for the wedding of their young chief
with the Princess Marguerite. They rushed to the house
in which Coligny lay. The young King of Navarre and
his cousin, Henry de Conde, went to the King to demand
justice, which Charles promised would be promptly rendered.
Coligny asked to see the King, who proposed to go at once.
Catherine feared to leave the two alone, and accompanied
him, attended by a number, of her most trusty adherents.
Even the Duke of Guise was there. The King by
Coligny's bedside swore again with a great oath that he
would avenge the outrage in a way that it would never
be forgotten. A commission was appointed to inquire into
the affair, and they promptly discovered that retainers
of the Guises were implicated. If the investigations were
pursued in the King's temper, Guise would probably seek
to save himself by revealing Catherine's share in the
attempted assassination. She became more and more a
\)VQy to terror. The Huguenots grew more and more
violent. At last Catherine, whether on her own initiative
or prompted by others will never be known, believed that
she could only save herself by a prompt and thorough
^ For the attempted assassination of Coligny, of. Whitehead, Gaspardde
Coligny, Admiral of Fi'ance (Lowlon, 1905), pp. 258.//'. ; Bulletin de I' histoire
du Protestantisme Frangais, xxxvi. 105 ; BitJIe in dc la SocUte de lliistoire de
Paris, etc. xiv, 38.
THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW 199
(massacre of the Huguenots, gathered in unusual numbers
in Paris.^
She summoned a council (Aug. 23 rd), at which were
present, so far as is known, the Duke of Anjou, her
favourite son, afterwards Henry in., Marshal Tavannes,
Nevers, Nemours (the stepfather of the Guises), Birago
(Chancellor), the Count de Eetz, and the Chevalier
d'Angouleme — four of them Italians. They were un-
animous in advising an instant massacre. Tavannes and
Nevers, it is said, pled for and obtained the Hves of the
two young Bourbons, the King of Navarre and the Prince
de Conde. The Count de Retz, who was a favourite with
Charles, was engaged to win the King's consent by appeal-
ing to his fears, and by telling him that his mother and
brother were as deeply implicated as Guise.
Night had come down before the final resolution was
taken ; but the fanatical and bloodthirsty mob of Paris
might be depended upon. At the last moment, Tavannes
(the son) tells us in his Memoirs, Catherine wished to draw
back, but the others kept her firm. The Duke of Guise
undertook to slay Coligny. The Admiral was run through
with a pike, and the body tossed out of the window into
the courtyard where Guise was waiting. At the Louvre
the young Bourbon Princes were arrested, taken to the
King, and given their choice between death and « the Mass.
The other Huguenot gentlemen who were in the Louvre
were slain. In the morning the staircases, halls, and anti-
chambers of the Palace were deeply stained with blood.
When the murders had been done in the Louvre, the troops
divided into parties and went to seek other victims.
Almost all the Huguenot gentlemen on the north side of
^ For the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, cf. Bonnardot, Registres des
Deliberations du Bureau de la Ville de Paris {1568-1572), vii. (Paris, 1893) ;
M4moires de Madame du Plessis-Moma7j, publ. by the Societi de Vhistoire de
la France (1868) ; Mdmoires et Correspondance de'Du Plessis-MoTmay (1824),
ii. ; Bordier, Saint Barthelemy et la critique vioderne ; Whitehead, Gas-
pard de Coligny, Admiral of France (London, 1905), pp. 253 jf. ; Froude,
History of England {London, 1887), ix.-x. ; Mariejol, Histoircde France, etc.,
VI. i. 114/.
200 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
the river were slain, and all in the Quartier Latin. But
some who lodged on the south side (among them
Montgomery, and Jean de Ferrieres, the Vidame de
Chartres) escaped.
Orders were sent to complete the massacre in the
provinces. At Orleans the slaughter lasted five days, and
Protestants were slain in numbers at Meaux, Troyes, Eouen,
Lyons, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and in many other places. The
total number of victims has been variously estimated.
Sully, the Prime Minister of Henry iv., who had good means
of knowing, says that seventy thousand perished. Several
thousands were slain in Paris alone.
The news was variously received by Eoman Catholic
Europe. The German Eomanists, including the Emperor,
were not slow to express their disapprobation. But Eome
was illuminated in honour of the event, a medal was struck
to commemorate the Hugonotorum Strages^ and Cardinal
Orsini was sent to convey to the King and Queen Mother
the congratulations of the Pope and the College of
Cardinals. Philip of Spain was delighted, and is said to
have laughed outright for the first and last time in his life.
He congratulated the son on having such a mother, and
the mother on having such a son.
Catherine herself believed that the massacre had ended
all her troubles. The Huguenots had been annihilated, she
thought ; and it is reported that when she saw Henry of
Navarre bowing to the altar she burst out into a shrill laugh.
§ 15. Tlie Hwjuenot resistance after the Massacre.
Catherine's difficulties were not ended. It was not
so easy to exterminate the Huguenots. Most of the
^ The existence of this medal has been unblushingly denied by some
Roman Catholic controversialists. It is described and figured in the Jesuit
Bonani's Nwmismata Pontificv.m (Rome, 1689), i. 336. Two commemorative
medals were struck in Franco, and on the reverse of one of them Charles ix.
is represented as Hercules with a club in the one hand and a torch in the
other slaying the seven-headed Hydra. They are figured in the Bidletin de
la Society de I'histoire du Profedantisvic Franqais for 1855, pp. 139, 140.
HUGUENOT RESISTANCE AFTER THE MASSACRE 201
leaders had perished, but the people remained, cowed for a
time undoubtedly, but soon to regain their courage. The
Protestants held the strongholds of La Rochelle and
Sancerre, the one on the coast and the other in central
France. The artisans and the small shopkeepers insisted
that there should be no surrender. The sailors of Jji
Eochelle fraternised with the Sea Beggars of Brill, and
waged an implacable sea-war against the ships of Spain.
Nimes and Montauban closed their gates against the
soldiers of the King. Milhaud, Aubenas, Privas, Mirabel,
Anduze, Sommieres, and other towns of the Viverais and
of the Cevennes became cities of refuge. All over France,
the Huguenots, although they had lost their leaders, kept
together, armed themselves, communicated with each other,
maintained their religious services — though compelled
generally to meet at night.
The attempt to capture these Protestant strongholds
made the Fourth Eeligious War. La Rochelle was invested,
beat back many assaults, was blockaded and endured famine,
and in the end compelled its enemies to retire from its
walls. Sancerre was less fortunate. After the failure of
an attempt to take it by assault. La Chatre, the general
of the besieging army, blockaded the town in the closest
fashion. The citizens endured all the utmost horrors of
famine. Five hundred adults and all the children under
twelve years of age died of hunger. " Why weep," said a
boy of ten, " to see me die of hunger ? I do not ask bread,
mother : I know that you have none. Since God wills
that I die, thus we must accept it cheerfully. Was not
that good man Lazarus hungry ? Have I not so read in
the Bible ? " The survivors surrendered ; their lives were
spared; and on payment of a ransom of forty thousand
livres the town was not pillaged.
The war ended with the peace of Rochelle (July 15 To),
when liberty of conscience was accorded to all, but the right
of public worship was permitted only to Rochelle, Nimes,
Montauban, and in the houses of some of the principal
Protestant nobles. These terms were hard in comparison
202 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
with the rights which had been won before the Massacre
of Saint Bartholomew ; but the Hnguenots had reason for
rejoicing. Their cause was still alive. Neither war, nor
massacre, nor frauds innumerable had made any impression
on the great mass of the French Protestants.
The peace declared by the treaty of La Eochelle did
not last long, and indeed was never universal. The Pro-
testants of the South used it to prepare for a renewal of
conflict. They remained under arms, perfecting their
military organisation. They divided the districts which
they controlled into regular governments, presided over by
councils whose members were elected and were the military
leaders of a Protestant nation for the time being separate
from the kingdom of France. They imposed taxes on
Eomanists and Protestants, and confiscated the ecclesiastical
revenues. They were able to stock their strongholds with
provisions and munitions of war, and maintain a force of
twenty thousand men ready for oh'ensive action.
Their councils at Nimes and Montauban formulated the
conditions under which they would submit to the French
Government. Nimes sent a deputation to the King fur-
nished with a series of written articles, in which they
demanded the free exercise of their religion in every part
of France, the maintenance at royal expense of Huguenot
garrisons in all the strongholds held by them, and the
cession of two strong posts to be cities of refuge in each of
the provinces of France. The demands of the council of
Montauban went further. They added that the King
must condemn the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, execute
justice on those who had perpetrated it, reverse the sen-
tences passed on all the victims, approve of the Huguenot
resistance, and declare that he praised la singulUre et
admirable honU cle Dieu who had still preserved his Pro-
testant subjects. They required also that the rights of the
Protestant minority in France should be guaranteed by
the Protestant States of Europe — by the German Protest-
ant Princes, by Switzerland, England, and Scotland. They
dated their document significantly August 24th — the
HUGUENOT RESISTANCE AFTER THE MASSACRE 203
anniversary of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The
deputies refused to discuss these terms ; they simply pre-
sented them. The King might accept them ; he might
refuse them. They were not to be modified.
Catherine was both furious and confounded at the
audacity of these " rascals " {ces misdrables), as she called
them. She declared that Conde, if he had been at the
head of twenty thousand cavalry and fifty thousand
infantry, would never have asked for the half of what these
articles demanded. The Queen Mother found herself face
to face with men on whom she might practise all her arts
in vain, very different from the dehonnaire Huguenot princes
whom she had been able to cajole with feminine graces
and enervate with her " Flying Squadron." These farmers,
citizens, artisans knew her and her Court, and called things
by rude names. She herself was a " murderess," and her
" Flying Squadron " were " fallen women." She had cleared
away the Huguenot aristocracy to find herself in presence
of the Protestant democracy.
The worst of it was that she dared not allow the
King to give them a decided answer. A new force had
been rising in France since Saint Bartholomew's Day — the
Politiques^ as they were called. They put France above
religious parties, and were weary of the perpetual blood-
shed ; they said that " a man does not cease to be a citizen
because he is excommunicated " ; they declared that " with
the men they had lost in the religious wars they could
have driven Spain out of the Low Countries." They
chafed under the rule of " foreigners," of the Queen Mother
and her Italians, of the Guises and their Jesuits. They
were prepared to unite with the Huguenots in order to
give France peace. They only required leaders who could
represent the two sides of the coalition. If the Duke of
Alen(;-on, the youngest brother of the King, and Henry of
Navarre could escape from the Court and raise their stand-
ards together, they were prepared to join them.
Charles ix. died on Whitsimday 1574 of a disease
^ La Ferriere, Catherine dc Medicis cl Ics Pofitiques (Paris, 1804).
204 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
which the tainted blood of the Valois and the Medicis
induced. The memories of Saint Bartholomew also
hastened his death. Private memoirs of courtiers tell us
that in his last weeks of fever he had frightful dreams by
day and by night. He saw himself surrounded by dead
bodies ; hideous faces covered with blood thrust themselves
forward towards his. The crime had not been so much
his as his mother's, but he had something of a conscience,
and felt its burden. " Et ma Mere " was his last word —
an appeal to his mother, whom he feared more than his
God.
On Charles' death, Henry, Duke of Anjou, succeeded as
Henry iii.^ He was in Poland — -king of that distracted
country. He abandoned his crown, evaded his subjects,
and reached France in September 1574. His advent did
not change matters much. Catherine still ruled in reality.
The war went on with varying success in different parts of
France. But the Duke of Anjou (the Duke of Alen^on
took this title on his brother's accession) succeeded in
escaping from Court (Sept. 15th, 1575), and the King of
Navarre also managed to elude his guardians (Feb. 3rd,
1576). Anjou joined the Prince of Conde, who was at the
head of a mixed force of Huguenots and Politiques. Henry
of Navarre went into Poitou and remained there. His
first act was to attend the Protestant worship, and im-
mediately afterwards he renounced his forced adhesion to
Eomanism. He did not join any of the parties in the
field, but sent on his own demands to be forwarded to the
King along with those of the confederates, adding to them
the request that the King should aid him to recover the
Spanish part of Navarre which had been forcibly annexed
to Spain by Ferdinand of Aragon.
The escape of the two Princes led in the end to the
" Peace of Monsieur," the terms of which were published
in the Edict of Beaulieu (May 6th, 1576). The right of
^ Pierre de I'Estoile, Journal de Henri III. (Paris, 1875-84) ; Michele't,
Histoire de France, vols. xi. and xii ; Jackson, The Last of the Valois
(London, 1888).
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE LEAGUE 205
public worship was given to Protestants in all towns and
places within the kingdom of France, Paris only and towns
where the Court was residing being excepted. Protestants
received eight strongholds, partly as cities of refuge and
partly as guarantees. Chambers of Justice " mi-parties "
(composed of both Protestants and Eoman Catholics) were
established in each Parliament. The King actually apolo-
gised for the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, and declared
that it had happened to his great regret ; and all sentences
pronounced on the victims were reversed. This edict was
much more favourable to the Protestants than any that
had gone before. Almost all the Huguenots' demands had
been granted.
§ 16. The heginnings of the League.
Neither the King, who felt himself humiliated, nor the
Eomanists, who were indignant, were inclined to submit
long to the terms of peace. Some of the Romanist leaders
had long seen that the Huguenot enthusiasm and their
organisatioi;! were enabling an actual minority to combat,
on more than equal terms, a Romanist majority. Some of
the provincial leaders had been able to inspire their
followers with zeal, and to bind them together in an organi-
sation by means of leagues. These provincial leagues
suggested a universal organisation, which was fostered by
Henry, Duke of Guise, and by Catherme de' Medici. This
was the first form of that celebrated League which gave
twenty years' life to the civil war in France. The Duke
of Guise published a declaration in which he appealed to
all France to associate together in defence of the Holy
Church, Catholic and Roman, and of their iving Henry iii.,
whose authority and rights were being taken . from him by
rebels. All good Catholics were required to join the asso-
ciation, and to furnish arms for the accomplishment of its
designs. Those who refused were to be accounted enemies.
Neutrals were to be harassed with " toutes sortes d'ofVences
et molestes"; open foes were to be fought strenuously.
206 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
Paris was easily won to the League, and agents were sent
abroad throughout France to enrol recruits. Henry iii.
himself was enrolled, and led the movement.
The King bad summoned the States General to meet
at Blois and hold their first session there on Dec. 6th, 1576.
The League had attended to the elections, and the Estates
declared unanimously for unity of religion. Upon this the
King announced that the Edict of Beaulieu had been ex-
tracted from him by force, and that he did not intend to
keep it. Two of the Estates, the Clergy and the Nobles,
were prepared to compel unity at any cost. The Third
Estate was divided. A minority wished the unity brought
about " by gentle and pacific ways " ; the majority asked
for the immediate and complete suppression of the public
worship of the Protestants, and for the banishment of all
ministers, elders, and deacons.
These decisions of the States General were taken by
the Huguenots as a declaration of war, and they promptly
began to arm themselves. It was the first war of the
League, and the sixth of Eeligion. It ended with the
Peace of Hergerac (Sept. i5th, 1578), in which the terms
granted to the Huguenots were rather worse than those of
the Edict of Beaulieu. A seventh war ensued, terminated
by the Peace of Fleix (Nov. 1580).
The Duke of Anjou died (June 10th, 1584), and the
King had no son. The heir to the throne, according to
the Salic Law, which excluded females, was Henry of
Navarre, a Protestant. On the death of Anjou, Henry in.
found himself face to face with this fact. He know and
felt that he was the guardian of the dynastic rights of the
French throne, and that his duty was to acknowledge Henry
of Navarre as his successor. He accordingly sent one of
his favourites, Eperon, to prevail upon Henry of Navarre
to become a Eoman Catholic and come to Court, Henry
refused to do either.
THE LEAGUE BECOMES DISLOYAL 207
§ 17. The League becomes disloyal.^
Meanwhile the Eomanist nobles were takino- their
measures. Some of them met at Nancy towards the
close of 1584 to reconstruct the League. They resolved
to exclude the Protestant Bourbons from the throne, and
proclaim the Cardinal Bourbon as the successor of Henry
HI. They hoped to obtain a Bull from the Pope
authorising this selection ; and they received the support
of Philip of Spain in the Treaty of Joinville (Dec. Slst,
1584).
Paris did not wait for the sanction or recommendation
of the nobles. A contemporary anonymous pamphlet,
which is the principal source of our information, describes
how four men, three of them ecclesiastics, met together
to found the League of Paris. They discussed the names
of suitable members, and, having selected a nucleus of
trustworthy associates, they proceeded to elect a secret
council of eight or nine who were to dii^ec't and
control everything. The active work of recruiting was
superintended by six associates, of whom one, the Sieur
de la Rocheblond, was a member of the secret council.
Soon all the most fanatical elements of the population
of Paris belonged to this secret • society, sworn to
obey blindly the orders of the mysterious council who
from a concealed background directed everything. The
corporations of the various trades' were won to the
League ; the butchers of Paris, for example, furnished a
band of fifteen hundred resolute and dangerous men. Trusty
^Dialogue d^entre le Maheustre et le Maiiant ; conienant ies raisons de
leurs dehats et questions en ces presens troubles au royaume de Finance 1594 ;
this rare pamphlet is printed in the Satyre Mcnipp>'c, de la vertu du
Catholicon d'Uspagne, Ratisbon (Amstcrd'am), 1709, iii. 367 ff. Miiiioires
de la Ligue, contenaivt les ivineiiicns les plus remarqnahles depuis 1576
jusqu'a la paix accordie entre le roi de France et le roi dEspagne en 1508
(Amsterdam, 1758) ; Pierre de rEstoik\ Jounial de Henri ill. (I'aris,
1875-84), and Journal du regne de Henri IV. (Tlie Hague, 1741) ; Robiquet,
Paris et la Ligue (Paris, 1886) ; Victor de Chalainbert, Histoire de la,
Ligue (Paris, 1854) ; Maury, " La Conmiunc do Paris dc l.')S8 " (in li'v. dc3
Deux Mondcs, Sept. 1, 1871).
208 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
emissaries were sent to the large towns of France, and
secret societies on the plan of the one in Paris were
formed and affiliated with the mother-society in Paris,
all bound to execute the orders of the secret council of
the capital. The Sieur de la Eocheblond, whose brain
had planned the whole organisation, was the medium of
communication with the Eomanist Princes ; and through
him Henry, Duke of Guise, le Balafre as he was called
from a scar on his face, was placed in command of this
new and formidable instrument, to be wielded as he
thought best for the extirpation of the Protestantism of
France.
The King had published an edict forbidding all
armed assemblies, and this furnished the Leaguers with a
pretext for sending forth their manifesto : Declaration des
causes qui ont Tneu Monseigneur le Cardinal de Bourhon
et les Fairs, Princes, Seigneurs, miles et communautez
catholiques de ce royaume de France : Be s'opposer a ceux
qui far tous moyens sefforcent de suhvertir la religion
catholique et VFstat {SO Mars 1585). It was a skilfully
drafted document, setting forth the danger to religion in
the foreground, but touching on all the evils and jealousies
which had arisen from the favouritism of Henry ill.
Guise at once began to enrol troops and commence
open hostilities ; and almost all the great towns of France
and most of the provinces in the North and in the Centre
declared for the League.
Henry iii. was greatly alarmed. With the help of his
mother he negotiated a treaty with the Leaguers, in wliich
he promised to revoke all the earlier Edicts of Toleration,
to prohibit the exercise of Protestant public worship
throughout the kingdom, to banish the ministers, and to
give all Protestants the choice between becoming Eoman
Catholics or leaving the realm within six months (Treaty
of Nemours, July 7th, 1585). These terms were embodied
in an edict dated July 18th, 1585. The Pope, Sixtus v.,
thereupon published a Bull, which declared that the King
of Navarre and the Prince of Conde, being heretics, were
THE LEAGUE BECOMES DISLOYAL 209
incapable of succeeding to the throne of France, deprived
them of their estates, and absolved all their vassals from
allegiance. The King of Navarre replied to " Monsieur
Sixtus, self-styled Pope, saving His Holiness," and promised
to avenge the insult done to himself and to the Parlements
of France.
"The war of the three Henrys," from Henry iii.,
Henry of Guise, and Henry of Navarre, began in the later
months of 1585. It was in some respects a triangular
fi^ht; for although the King and the Guises were both
ostensibly combating the Huguenots, the Leaguers, headed
by Guises, and the Loyalists, were by no means whole-
hearted allies. It began unfavourably for the Protestants,
but as it progressed the skilful generalship of the King of
Navarre became more and more apparent — at Coutras
(Oct. 20th, 1587) he almost annihilated the royalist army.
The King made several ineffectual attempts to win the
Protestant leader to his side. Navarre would never
consent to abjure his faith, and Henry iii. made that an
absolute condition.
While the war was goiug on in the west and centre
of France, tlie League was strengthening its organisation
and perfecting its plans. It had become more and more
hostile to Henry ill., and had become a secret revolutionary
society. It drafted a complete programme for* the im-
mediate future. The cities and districts of France which
felt themselves specially threatened -by the Huguenots
were to beseech the King to raise levies for their protec-
tion. If he refused or procrastinated, they were to raise
the troops themselves, to be commanded by officers in
whom the League had confidence. They could then
compel the King to place himself at the head of this
army of the Leaguers, or show- himself to be their open
enemy by refusing. If the King died childless, the
partisans of the League were to gather at Orleans and
Paris, and were there to elect the Cardinal de Bourbon
as the King of France. The Pope and the King of Spain
were to be at once informed, when it had been arranged
A
210 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
that His Holiness would send his benediction, and that His
Majesty would assist them with troops and supplies. A
new form of oath was imposed on all the associates of the
League. They were to swear allegiance to the King
so long as he should show himself to be a good Catholic
and refrained from favouring heretics. These instructions
were sent down from the mother-society in Paris to the
provinces, and the affiliated societies were recommended to
keep in constant communication with Paris. Madame de
Montpensier, sister to the Guises, at the same time
directed the work of a band of preachers whose business
it was to inflame the minds of the people in the capital
and the provinces against the King and the Huguenots.
She boasted that she did more work for the cause than
her brothers were doing by the sword.
The Guises, with this force behind them, tried to
force the King to make new concessions — to publish the
decisions of the Council of Trent in France (a thing that
had not been done) ; to establish the Inquisition in
France ; to order the execution of all Huguenot prisoners
who would not promise to abjure their religion ; and to
remove from the armies all officers of whom the League
did not approve. The mother-society in Paris prepared
for his refusal by organising a secret revolutionary govern-
ment for the city. It was called " The Sixteen," being
one for each of the sixteen sections of Paris. This
government was under the orders of Guise, who com-
municated with them through an ajrent of his called
Mayneville. Plot after plot was made to get possession
of the King's person ; and but for the activity and informa-
tion of Nicholas Poulain, an officer of police who managed
to secure private information, they would have been
successful
THE DAY OF BARRICADES 211
§ 18. The Day of Barricades}
The King redoubled his guards, and ordered four
thousand Swiss troops which he had stationed at Lagny
into the suburbs of Paris. The Parisian Leaguers in
alarm sent for the Duke of Guise; and Guise, in spite
of a prohibitive order from the King, entered the city.
When he was recognised he was received with acclamations
by the Parisian crowd. The Queen-Mother induced the
King to receive him, which he did rather ungraciously.
Officers and men devoted to the League crowded mU)
Paris. The King, having tried in vain to prevent the
entry of all suspected persons, at last ordered the Swips
into Paris (May 12th, 1588). The citizens flew to arms,
and converted Paris into a stronghold. It was " the day
of Barricades." Chains were stretched across the streets,
and behind them were piled beams, benches, carts, great
barrels filled with stones or gravel. Houses were loop-
holed and windows protected. Behind these defences men
were stationed with arquebuses; and the women and
children were provided with heaps of stones. Guise had
remained in his house, but his officers were to be seen
moving through the crowds and directing the defence.
The Swiss troops found themselves caught in a trap, and
helpless. Henry m. was compelled to ask Guise to inter-
fere in order to save his soldiers. The King had to
undergo further humiliation. The -citizens proposed to
attack the Louvre and seize the King's person. Guise
had to be appealed to again. He had an interview witli
the King on the 13th, at which Henry ill. was forced to
agree to all the demands of the League, and to leave the
conduct of the war against the Huguenots in the hands
of the leader of the League. ' After the interview the
King was able to escape " secretly from Paris.
The day of the " Barricades " had proved to Henry ill.
that the League was master in his capital. The meetmg
^ The scenes on tlie Day of the Barricades are described in a con-
temporary paper printed in Sotyrc Mcnii'pcc (ed. of 1709), m. 39^/.
A
212 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
of the States General at Blois (Oct. 1588) was to show him
that the country had also turned against him.
The elections had been looked after by the Guises, and
had taken place while the impression produced by the
revolt of Paris was at its height. The League commanded
an immense majority in all the three Estates. Tlie
business before them was grave. The finances of the
kingdom were in disorder ; favouritism had not been got
rid of ; and no one could trust the King's word. Above
all, the religious question was embittering every mind.
The Estates met under the influence of a religious
exaltation fanned by the priests. On the 9th of Oct.
representatives of the three Estates went to Mass together.
During the communion the assistant clergy chanted the
well-known liymns, — Pange lingua gloriosi, 0 salutaris Hostia,
Ave m7'um Corpus naticm, — and the excitement was immense,
The members of the Estates had never been so united.
Yet the King had a moment of unwonted courage.
He had resolved to denounce the League as the source
of the disorders in the kingdom. He declared that he
would not allow a League to exist within the realm. He
only succeeded in making the leaders furious. His bravado
soon ceased. The Cardinal de Bourbon compelled him to
omit from the published version of his speech the objection-
able expressions. The Estates forced him to swear that he
would not permit any religion within the kingdom but the
Koman. This done, he was received with cries of Vive le
Boi, and was accompanied to his house with acclamations.
But he was compelled to see tlie Duke of Guise receive the
office of Lieutenant-General, which placed the army under
his command ; and he felt that he would never be " master
in his own house " until that man had been removed from
his path.
The news of the completeness of the destruction of the
Armada had been filtering through France ; the fear of
Spain was to some extent removed, and England might help
the King if he persisted in a policy of tolerating his Pro-
testant subjects. It is probable that he confided his project
THE DAY OF BARRICADES 213
of getting rid of Guise to some of his more intimate coun-
cillors, and that they assured him that it would be impos-
sible to remove such a powerful subject by legal means.
The Duke and his brother the Cardinal of Guise were
summoned to a meeting of the Council. They had scarcely
taken their seats when they were asked to see the King in
his private apartments. There Guise was assassinated,
and the Cardinal arrested, and slain the next day.^ The
Cardinal de Bourbon and the young Prince de Joinville
(now Duke of Guise by his father's death) were arrested
and imprisoned. Orders were given to arrest the Duchess
of Nemours (Guise's mother), the Duke and Duchess of
Elbceuf, the Count de Brissac, and other prominent
Leaguers. The King's guards invaded the sittings of the
States General to carry out these orders. The bodies of
the two Guises were burnt, and the ashes thrown into the
Loire.
The news of the assassination raised the wildest rage in
Paris. The League proclaimed itself a revolutionary society.
The city organised itself in its sections. A council was
appointed for each section to strengthen the hands, of the
" Sixteen." ' Preachers caused their audiences to swear that
they would spend the last farthing in their purses and the
last drop of blood in their bodies to avenge the slaughtered
princes. The Sorbonne in solemn conclave declared that
the actions of Henry ill. had absolved his subjects from their
allegiance. The " Sixteen " drove from Parlement all sus-
pected persons ; and, thus purged, the Parlement of Paris
ranged itself on the side of the revolution. The Duke of
Mayenne, the sole surviving brother of Henry of Guise, was
summoned to Paris. An assembly of the citizens uf the
capital elected a CoiLncil General of the Union of Catholics
to manage the affairs of the State and to confer with all
the Catholic towns and provinces of France. Deputies sent
by these towns and provinces were to be members of the
Council. The Duke of Mayenne was appointed by the
1 Brown, "The Assassination of the Guises as described by the Venetian
Ambassador" {Ewj. Hist. Ee^ncu; x. 304).
214 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
Council the Lieutenant-General of the State and Croion of
France. The new Government had its seal — the Seal of the
Kingdoyn of France. The larger number of the great towns
of France adhered to this provisional and revolutionary
Government.
In the midst of these tumults Catherine de' Medici
died (Jan. 5th, 1589).
§ 19. The King takes refuge with tlu Huguenots.
The miserable King had no resource left but to throw
himself upon the protection of the Protestants. He hesi-
tated at first, fearing threatened papal excommunication.
Henry of Navarre's bearing during these months of anxiety
had been admirable. After the meeting of the States
General at Blois, he had issued a stirring appeal to the
nation, pleading for peace — the one thing needed for the
distracted and fevered country. He now assured the King
of his loyalty, and promised that he would never deny to
Eoman Catholics that liberty of conscience and worship
which he claimed. A treaty was arranged, and the King of
Navarre went to meet Henry III. at Tours. He arrived just
in time. Mayenne at the head of an avenging army of
Leaguers had started as soon as the provisional government
had been established in Paris. He had taken by assault
a suburb of the town, and was about to attack the city of
Tours itself, when he found the Protestant vanguard
guarding the bridge over the Loire, and had to letreat.
He was slowly forced back towards Paris. The battle of
Senlis, in which a much smaller force of Huguenots routed
the Duke d'Auniale, who had been reinforced by the Parisian
militia, opened the way to Paris. The King of Navarre
pressed on. Town after town was taken, and the forces of
the two kings, increased by fourteen thousand Swiss and
Germans, were soon able to seize the bridge of St. Cloud
and invest the capital on the south and west (July 29th,
1589). An assault was fixed for Aug. 2nd.
Since the murder of the Guises, Paris had been a caldron
THE KING TAKES REFUGE WITH THE HUGUENOTS 215
of seething excitement. The whole population, " avec dou-
leur et gemissements Men grands" had assisted at the funeral
service for " the Martyrs," and the baptism of the
posthumous son of the slaughtered Duke had been a civic
ceremony. The Bull "monitory" of Pope Sixtus v.,
posted up in Eome on May 24th, which directed Henry
III. on pain of excommunication to release the imprisoned
prelates within ten days, and to appear either personally
or by proxy within sixty days before the Curia to answer
for the murder of a Prince of the Church, had fanned tho
excitement. Almost every day the Parisians saw pro-
cessions of students, of women, of children, defiling through
their streets. They marched from shrine to shrine, v.'ith
naked feet, clad only in their shirts, defying the cold of
wint-er. Parishioners dragged their priests out of bed to
head nocturnal processions. The hatred of Henry iii.
became almost a madness. The Cordeliers decapitated his
portraits. Parish priests made images of the King in wax,
placed them on their altars, and practised on them magical
incantations, in the hope of doing deadly harm to the
living man. Bands of children carried lighted candles,
which they extinguished to cries of, " God extinguish thus
the race of the Valois."
Among the most excited members of this fevered
throng was a young Jacobin monk, Jacques Clement, by
birth a peasant, of scanty intelligence, and rougli, violent
manners. His excitement grew with the perils of the city.
He consulted a theologian in whom he had confidence, aiid
got from him a guarded answer that it might .be lawful to
slay a tyrant. He prayed, fasted, went through a course
of maceration of the body. He saw visions. He believed
that he heard voices, and that he received definite orders
to give his life in order to slay. the King. He confided
his purpose to friends, who approved of it and helped his
preparations. He was able to leave the^city, to pass through
the beleaguering lines, and to get private audience of the
King. He presented a letter, and while Henry was reading
it stabbed him in the lower part of the body. The deed
216 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
done, the monk raised himself to his full height, extended
his arms to form himself into a crucifix, and received
without flinching his deathblow from La Guesle and other
attendants (Aug. 1st, 1589).^
The King lingered until the following morning, and then
expired, commending Henry of Navarre to his companions
as his legitimate successor.
The news of the assassination was received in Paris
with wild delight. The Duchess de Nemours, the mother
of the Guises, and the Duchess de Montpensier, their sister,
went everywhere in the streets describing " the heroic act of
Jacques Clement." The former mounted the steps of the
High Altar in the church of the Cordeliers to proclaim the
news to the people. The citizens, high and low, brought
out their tables into the streets, and they drank, sang, shouted
and danced in honour of the news. They swore that they
would never accept a Protestant king ^ and the Cardinal
de Bourbon, still a prisoner, was proclaimed as Charles x.
At Tours, on the other hand, the fact that the heir to
the throne was a Protestant, threw the Eoman Catholic
nobles into a state of perplexity. They had no sympathy
with the League, but many felt that they could not serve
a Protestant king. They pressed round the new King,
beseeching him to abjure his faith at once. Henry refused
to do what would humiliate himself, and could not be
accepted as an act of sincerity. On the other hand, the
^ Histoire de France depuis les origines jusqu'a la Bevoluti&n (Paris,
1904), VI. i. 298/., by H. Mariejol.
"They argued: *'Je vons demande, voudriez-vous bailler une fille
pudique, honneste, belle, verteuse et modeste, a iin homme desbauche, et
abandonne k tous vices, sous ombre qu'il vous diroit qu'il s'amenderoit, et
qu'il n'y retournoit estant marie, que vous luy osteriez vostre fille ? Je crois
que tout bon pere de famille ne se mettroit en ce hazard, ou feroit un tour
d'horarae sans eervelle. Or c'est I'Eglise Catholique, Apostolique etRomaine
qui est une pucelle, belle et honneste en cette France qui n'a jamais eu pour
Roy un heretique, mais tous bons Catholiques et assidez a Jesus-Christ son
espoux. Voudriez-vous done bailler cette Eglise que les rran9ois ont tant
fidelement servie et honouree sous leur Rois Catholiques, aujourd'huy la pro-
stituer entre les mains d'un heretique, relaps et excommunie ? " — "Dialogue
d'entre le Maheustre et le Manant " [Saiyre Menipi cc, iii 387)
THE DECLARATION OF HENRY IV. 217
nobles of Champagne, Picardy, and the Isle of France sent
assurances of allegiance ; the Duke of Montpensier, the
husband of the Leaguer Duchess, promised his support ;
and the Swiss mercenaries declared that they would serve
for two months without pay.
§ 20. The Declaration of Henry iv}
Thus encouraged, Henry published his famous declara-
tion (Aug. 4th, 1589). He promised that the Eoman
Catholic would remain the religion of the realm, and that
he would attempt no innovations. Ho declared that ho
was willing to be instructed in its tenets, and that within
six months, if it were possible, he would summon a National
Council. The Eoman Catholics would be retained in their
governments and charges ; the Protestants would keep the
strongholds which were at present in their hands ; but all
fortified places when reduced would be entrusted to Eoman
Catholics and none other. This declaration was sii^ned
by two Princes of the Blood, the Prince of Conti and the
Duke of Montpensier ; by three Dukes and Peers, Lougue-
ville, Luxembourg-Piney, and Eohan-Montbazon ; by two
Marshals of France, Biron and d'Aumont ; and by several
great officers. Notwithstanding, the. defections were
serious ; all the Farlevwnts save that of Bordeaux thundered
against the heretic King ; all the great towns save Tours,
Bordeaux, ChCilons, Langres, Compiegne, and Clermont
declared for the League. The greater part of the kingdom
^ Sources : Recueil des Letlres Missives de Henri IV. {Collection de Docu-
ments intdits, Paris, 1843-72), 8 vols. ; Alberi, EelQzioni degli Amhasciatori
Vcncti (Florence, 1860, etc.) ; Charles, Due de Mayennc, Corrcspondance,
2 vols. (Paris, 1860) ; SirH. Upton, Correspondence {Eoxburgh Club, London,
1847); DuPlessis-Mornay, Mtmoires, 4 vols, (Amsterdam, 1624-52) ; Madame
Du Plessis-Mornay, Mtmoires s^ir la Vic de Die Plcssis-Momay (Taris,
1868-69, Soc. Hist, de France) ; Mar^chal de Bassompierre, Journal dema
vie 1579-1640, 4 vols. (Paris, 1870-77, Soc. Hist, dc France) ; Scdirc Menipp-'c,
3 vols. (Ratisbon (Amsterdam), 1709) ; Benoit, Histaire de Vidit de Nantes.
Later Books : Baird, The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre (London,
1887) ; Jackson, The First of the Bourbons, 2 vols. (London, 1890) ; Lavisse,
Histoire de France, vi. i. ii. (Paris, 1904-5).
k
218 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
was in revolt. The royalist troops dwindled away. It
was hopeless to think of attacking Paris, and Henry iv.
marched for Normandy with scarcely seven thousand men.
He wished to be on the sea coast in hope of succour from
England.
The Duke of Mayenne followed him with an arm^, of
thirty thousand men. He had promised to the Parisians
to throw the " Bearnese " into the sea, or to bring him in
chains to Paris. But it was not so easy to catch the
" Bearnese." In the series of marches, countermarches, and
skirmishes which is known as the battle of Arques, the
advantage was on the side of the King ; and when
Mayenne attempted to take Dieppe by assault, he was
badly defeated (Sept. 24th, 1589). Then followed
marches and countermarches; the King now threatening
Paris and then retreating, until at last the royalist troops
and the Leaguers met at Ivry. The King had two
thousand cavalry and eight thousand infantry to meet eight
thousand cavalry and twelve thousand infantry
(including seventeen hundred Spanish troops sent by the
Duke of Parma) under the command of Mayenne. The
battle resulted in a surprising and decisive victory for the
King. Mayenne and his cousin d'Aumale escaped only by
the swiftness of their horses (March 14th, 1590).
It is needless to say much about the war or about the
schemes of parties. Henry invested Paris, and had almost
rstarved it into surrender, when it was revictualled by an
army led from the Low Countries by the Duke of Parma.
Henry took town after town, and gradually isolated the capital.
In 1590 (May 10th) the old Cardinal Bourbon (Charles
X.) died, and the Leaguers lost even the semblance of a
legitimate king. The more fanatical members of the party,
represented by the " Sixteen " of Paris, would have been
content to place France under the dominion of Spain
rather than see a heretic king. The Duke of Mayenne
had long cherished dreams that the crown might come to
liim. But the great mass of the influential people of
•prance who had not yet professed allegiance to Henry iv.
HENRY IV. BECOMES A ROMAN CATHOLIC 219
(and many who had) had an almost equal dread of Spanish
domination and of a heretic ruler.
§ 21. Henry iv. becomes a Roman Catholic.
] Henry at last resolved to conform to the Roman
Catholic religion as the only means of giving peace to his
distracted kingdom. He informed the loyalist Archbishop
of Bourges of his intention to be instructed in the Eoman
Catholic religion with a view to conversion. The Archbishop
was able to announce this at the conference of Suresnes,
and the news spread instantly over France. With his
usual tact, Henry wrote with his own hand to several of
the parish priests of Paris announcing his intention, and
invited them to meet him at Mantes to give him instruc-
tion. At least one of them had been a furious Leaguer,
and was won to be an enthusiastic loyalist.
1 The ceremony of the reception of Henry iv. into, the
' Eoman Catholic Church took place at Saint Denis, about
four and a half miles to the north of Paris. The scene had
all the appearance of some popular festival. The ancient
church in which the Kings of France had for generations
been buried, in which Jeanne d'Arc had hung up her arms,
was decked with splendid tapestries, and the streets leading
to it festooned with flowers. Multitudes of citizens had
come from rebel Paris to swell the throng and to shout
Vive le Roi ! as Henry, escorted by a brilliant procession of
nobles and guards, passed slowly to the church. The
clergy, headed by the Archbishop of Bourges, met him at
the door. The King dismounted, knelt, swore to live and
die in the catholic apostolic and Eoman religion, and
renounced all the heresies which it condemned. The
Archbishop gave him absolution, took him by the hand and
led him into the church. There, kneeling before the High
Altar, the King repeated his oath, confessed, and communi-
cated. France had now a Eoman Catliolic as well as a
legitimate King. Even if it be admitted that Henry iv.
was not a mnn of any depth of relii^nous feolinu^, llio a(^t of
220 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
abjuration must have been a humiliation for the son of
Jeanne d'Albret. He never was a man who wore his heart
on his sleeve, and his well-known saying, that " Paris was
well worth a Mass," had as much bitterness in it as gaiety.
He had paled with suppressed passion at Tours (1589)
when the Komau Catholic nobles had urged him to become
a Romanist. Had the success which followed his arms
up to the battle of Ivry continued unbroken, it is probable
that the ceremony at Saint Denis would never have taken
place. But Parma's invasion of France, which compelled
the King to raise the siege of Paris, was the beginning of
difficulties which seemed insurmountable. The dissensions
of parties within the realm, and the presence of foreigners
on the soil of France (Walloon, Spanish, Neapolitan, and
Savoyard), were bringing France to the verge of dissolution.
Henry believed that there was only one way to end the
strife, and he sacrificed his convictions to his patriotism.
With Henry's change of religion the condition of things
changed as if by magic. The League seemed to dissolve.
Tenders of allegiance poured in from all sides, from nobles,
provinces, and towns. Rheims was still in possession of
the Guises, and the anointing and crowning took place at
Chartres (Feb. 27th, 1594). The manifestations of loyalty
increased.
On the evening of the day on which Henry had
been received into the Roman Catholic Church at Saint
Denis, he had recklessly ridden up to the crest of the
height of Montmartre and looked down on Paris, which was
still in the hands of the League. The feelings of the
Parisians were also changing. The League was seamed
with dissensions ; Mayenne had quarrelled with the
" Sixteen," and the partisans of these fanatics of the
League had street brawls with the citizens of more moderate
opinions. Parlement took courage and denounced the
presence of Spanish soldiers within the capital. The
loyalists opened the way for the royal troops, Henry entered
Paris (March 22nd), and marched to Notre Dame, where
the clergy chanted the Te Dctim. From the cathedral he
THE EDICT OF NANTES 221
rode to the Louvre through streets thronged with people,
who pressed up to his very stirrups to see their King, and
made the tall houses re-echo with their loyalist shoutings.
Such a royal entry had not been seen for generations, and
took everyone by surprise. Next day the foreign troops
left the city. The King watched their departure from an
open window in the Louvre, and as their chiefs passed he
called out gaily, " My compliments to your Master. You
need not come back."
With the return of Paris to fealty, almost all signs
of disaffection departed; and the King's proclamation of
amnesty for all past rebellions completed the conquest of
his people. France was again united after thirty years of
civil war.
§ 22. The Edict of Nantes
The union of all Frenchmen to accept Henry iv. as
their King had not changed the legal position of the- Pro-
testants. The laws against them were still in force ; they
had nothing but the King's word promising protection to
trust to. The war with Spain delayed matters, but when
peace was made the time came for Henry to fulfil his
pledges to his former companions. They had been chafing
under the delay. At a General Assembly held at Mantes
(October 15 93-January 1594), the members had renewed
their oath to live and to die true to their confession of
faith, and year by year a General Assembly met to discuss
their political disabilities as well as to conduct their
ecclesiastical business. They had divided France into nine
divisions under provincial synods, and had the appearance
to men of that century of a kingdom within a kingdom.
They demanded equal civic rights with their Roman
Catholic fellow-subjects, and guarantees for their protection.
At length, in 1597, four delegates were a])])ointed with
full powers to confer with the King. Out of these
negotiations" came tlie Edict of Nantes, tlic Charter of
French Protestantism.
222 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE
This celebrated edict was drawn up in ninety -five
more general articles, which were signed on April 13th,
and in fifty-six more particular articles which were signed
on May 2nd (1598). Two Brevets, dated 13th and 30th
of April, were added, dealing with the treatment of Pro-
testant ministers, and with the strongholds given to the
Protestants. The Articles were verified and registered
by Farlements ; the Brevets were guaranteed simply by
the King's word.
The Edict of Nantes codified and enlarged the rights
given to the Protestants of France by the Edict of Poitiers
(1577), the Convention of Nerac (1578), the treaty of
Fleix (1580), the Declaration of Saint-Cloud (1589), the
Edict of Mantes (1591), the Ai'ticles of Mantes (15^3),
and the Edict of Saint-Germain (1594).
It secured complete liberty of conscience everywhere
within the realm, to the extent that no one was to be per-
secuted or molested in any way because of his religion, nor
be compelled to do anything contrary to its tenets ; and
this carried with it the right of private or secret worship.
The full and free right of public worship was granted in
all places in which it existed during the years 1596 and
1597, or where it had been granted by the Edict of Poitiers
interpreted by the Convention of Nerac and the treaty of
Fleix (some two hundred towns) ; and, in addition, in two
places within every hailliage and s^ndchauss^e in the realm.
It was also permitted in the principal castles of Protestant
seignmirs hauts Jicsticiers (some three thousand), whether the
proprietor was in residence or not, and in their other castles,
the proprietor being in residence ; to nobles who were not
hauts Justwiers, provided the audience did not consist of more
than thirty persons over and above relations of the family.
Even at the Court the high officers of the Crown, the great
nobles, all governors and lieutenants-general, and captains
of the guards, had the liberty of worship in their apart-
ments provided the doors were kept shut and there was
no loud singing of psalms, noise, or open scandal.-
Protestants were granted full civil rights and protec-
THE EDICT OF NANTES 223
jtion, entry into all universities, schools, and hospitals, and
j admission to all public offices. The Parlement of Paris
admitted six Protestant councillors. And Protestant
ministers were granted the exemptions from military
'service and such charges as the Eomanist clergy enjoyed.
Special Chambers (Chauihres d'Edit) were established in the
Parlements to try cases in which Protestants were interested.
In the Parleme7it of Paris this Chamber consisted of six
specially chosen Eoman Catholics and one Protestant ; in
other Parlements^ the Chambers were composed of equal
numbers of Eomanists and Protestants {mi-parties). The
Protestants were permitted to hold their ecclesiastical
assemblies — consistories, colloquies, and synods, national
and provincial ; they were even allowed to meet to discuss
political questions, provided they first secured the permis-
sion of the King.
,; They remained in complete control of two hundred
^owns, including La Eochelle, Montauban, and Montpellier,
strongholds of exceptional strength. They were to retain
these places until 1607, but the right was prolouged for
five years more. The State paid the expenses of the
troops which garrisoned these Protestant fortified places ;
it paid the governors, who were always Protestants.
When it is remembered that the royal army in time of
peace did not exceed ten thousand men, and that the
Huguenots could raise twenty-five thousand troops, it will
be seen that Henry iv. did his utmost to provide guarantees
against a return to a reign of intolerance.
Protected in this way, the Huguenot Church of France
speedily took a foremost place among the Protestant
Churches of Europe. Theological colleges were established
at Sedan, Montauban, and Saumur. Learning and piety
flourished, and French theology was always a counterpoise
to the narrow Eeformed Scholastic of Switzerland and of
Holland.
CHAPTEE V.
THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS.*
§ 1. The Political Situation.
It was not until 1581 that the United Provinces took rank
as a Protestant nation, notwithstanding the fact that the
Netherlands furnished the first martyrs of the Keformation
in the persons of Henry Voes and John Esch, Augustinian
monks, who were burnt at Antwerp (July 31st, 1523).
' As they were led to the stake they cried with a
loud voice that they were Christians ; and when they were
fastened to it, and the fire was kindled, they rehearsed the
twelve articles of the Creed, and after that the hymn Te
Deum laudamus, which each of them sang verse by verse
alternately until the flames deprived them both of voice
and life." 2
^ Sources : Brandt, The History of the Reformation and other ecclesiasticaZ
transactions in and about the Low-Countries (English translation in 4 vols,
fol., London, 1720 : the original in Dutch was published in 1671) ; Brieger,
Aleander und Luther (Gotha, 1894) ; Kalkoff, Die Despatchen des nuntius
Aleander (JlaWQ, 1897) ; Poullet Piot, Correspondance du Cardinal Granvelle,
12 vols. (Brussels, 1878-97) ; Weiss, Papiers d'Mat du Cardinal Granvelle,
9 vols. (Paris, 1841-52) ; Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II. sur les
affaires des Pays Bas, 5 vols. (Brussels, 1848-79) ; Correspondance de
Marguerite d'Autriche avec Philipipe 11.^ 1554-68 (Brussels, 1867-87) ;
Correspondance de Guillaume le Tacitume, Prince d' Orange, 6 vols. (Brussels,
1847-57) ; van Prinsterer, Archives ou correspondance inMite de la Maison
d' Orange- Nassau, in two series, 9 and 5 vols. (Utrecht, 1841-61) ; Renon
de France, Histoire des troubles des Pays-Pas, 3 vols. (Brussels, 1886-92) ;
Memoires anonymes sur les troubles des Pays-Pas, 1565-80 (in the Collection
des 3Iimoires sur Vhistoire de Belgique).
Latee Books : Armstrong, Charles V. (London, 1902) ; Motley, The Rise
of the Dutch Republic (London, 1865) ; Putnam, William the Silent (New
York, 1895) ; Harrison, William the Silent (London, 1897) ; Cambridge
Modern History, in. vi. vii. (Cambridge, 1904).
2 Brandt, The History of the Reformation, etc. i. 49 j cf. Journal d'un
Bourgeois de Paris, p. 185.
224
THE POLITICAL SITUATION 225
The struggle for religious liberty, combined latterly
with one for national independence from Spain, lasted
therefore for almost sixty years.
When the lifelong duel between Charles the Bold of
Burgundy and Louis XL of France ended with the death
of the former on the battlefield under the walls of Nancy
(January 4th, 1477), Louis was able to annex to France a
large portion of the heterogeneous possessions of the Dukes
of Burgundy, and Mary of Burgundy carried the remainder
as her marriage portion (May 1477) to Maximilian of
Austria, the future Emperor. Speaking roughly, and not
quite accurately, those portions of the Burgundian lands
which had been fiefs of France went to Louis, while Mary
and^ Maximilian retained those which were fiefs of the
Empire. The son of Maximilian and Mary , Philip the
Handsome, married Juana (August 1496), the second
daughter and ultimate heiress of Isabella and Ferdinand
of Spain, and their son was Charles v.. Emperor of Germany
(b. February 24th, 1500), who inherited the Netherlands
from his father and Spain from his mother, and thus
linked the Netherlands to Spain. Philip died in 1506,
leaving Charles, a boy of six years of age, the ruler of the
Netherlands. His paternal aunt, Margaret, the daughter
of the Emperor Maximilian, governed in the Netherlands
during his minority, and, owing to Juana's illness (an
illness ending in madness), mothered her brother's
children. Margaret's regency ended in 1515, and the
earlier history of the Eeformation in the Netherlands
belongs either to the period of the personal rule of Charles
or to that of the Eegents whom he appointed to act for
him.
The land, a delta of great rivers liable to overflow
their banks, or a coast-line on- which the sCta made con-
tinual encroachment, produced a people hardy, strenuous,
and independent. Their struggles wifh nature had braced
their faculties. Municipal life had struck its roots deeply
into the soil of the Netherlands, and its cities could vie
with those of Italy in industry and intelligence. The
226 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
southern provinces were the home of the Trouv6res.^ Jan
van-Kuysbroec, the most heart-searching of speculative
Mystics, had been a curate of St. Gudule's in Brussels.
His pupil, Gerard Groot, had founded the lay-community
of the Brethren of the Common Lot for the purpose of
spreading Christian education among the laity ; and the
schools and convents of the Brethren had spread through
the Netherlands and central Germany. Thomas a Kempis,
the author of the Imitatio Christi, had lived most of his
long life of ninety years in a small convent at ZwoUe,
within the territories of Utrecht. Men who have been
called " Eeformers before the Eeformation," John Pupper
of Goch and John Wessel, both belonged to the Nether-
lands. Art flourished there in the fifteenth century in the
persons of Hubert and Jan van Eyck and of Hans Memling.
The Chambers of Oratory (Bederijkers) to begin with
probably unions for the performance of miracle plays or
moralities, became confraternities not unlike the societies
of meistersdnger in Germany, and gradually acquired the
character of literary associations, which diffused not merely
culture, but also habits of independent thinking among the
people.
Intellectual life had become less exuberant in the end
of the fifteenth century ; but the Netherlands, nevertheless,
produced Alexander Hegius, the greatest educational
reformer of his time, and Erasmus the prince of the
Humanists. Nor can the influence of the Chambers of
Oratory have died out, for they had a great effect on
the Eeformation movement.^
When Charles assumed the government of the
Netherlands, he found himself at the head of a group
of duchies, lordships, counties, and municipalities which
had little appearance of a compact principality, and he
applied himself, like other princes of his time in the same
^ A collection of their chansons d'amour, jeux-partis, pastourelles, an<l
fabliaux will be found in Scheler's Trmiveres Beiges (Bruxelles, 1876).
2 Correspondance de Philippe II. siw les affaires des Paijs-Bas, i. 321, 327,
379 ; Correspwidancc de Guillaume le Taciturnc, ii. 161, 168.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION 227
i situation, to give them a unity both political and territorial.
jHe was so successful that he was able to hand over to his
son, Philip ii. of Spain, an almost thoroughly organised
/State. The divisions which Charles largely overcame
reappeared to some extent in the revolt against Philip and
Eomanism, and therefore in a measure concern the history
of the Reformation. How Charles made his scattered
Netherland inheritance territorially compact need not be
told in detail. Friesland was secured (1515); the
acquisition of temporal sovereignty over the ecclesiastical
province of Utrecht (1527) united Holland with Friesland ;
Gronningen and the lands ruled by that turbulent city
placed themselves under the government of Charles (1536) ;
and the death of Charles of Egmont (1538), Count of
Gueldres, completed the unification of the northern and
central districts. The vague hold which France kept in
some of the southern portions of the country was gradually
loosened. Charles failed in the south-east. The inde-
pendent principality of Lorraine lay between Luxemburg
and Franche-Comte, and the Netherland Government
could not seize it by purchase, treaty, or conquest. . One
and the same system of law regulated the rights and the
duties of the whole population ; and all the provinces
were united into one principality by the reorganisation of
a States General, which met almost annually, apd whicli
had a real if vaguely defined power to regulate the taxa-
tion of the country.
But although political and geographical difficulties
might be more or less overcome, others remained which
were not so easily disposed of. One set arose from the
fact that the seventeen provinces were divided by race
and by language. The Dutchmen in the north were dif-
ferent in interests and in sentiment from the Flemings
in the centre ; and both- had little in common with the
French-speaking provinces in the south. The other was
due to the ditlering boundaries of the ecclesiastical and
civil jurisdictions. When Charles began to rule in 1515;
the only territorial see was Arras. Tournai, Utrecht
228 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
and Cambrai became territorial before the abdication of
Charles. But the confusion between civil and ecclesi-
astical jurisdiction may be seen at a glance when it is
remembered that a great part of the Frisian lands were
subject to the German Sees of Munster, Minden, Paderborn,
and Osnabriick ; and that no less than six bishops, none of
them belonging to the Netherlands, divided the ecclesiastical
rule over Luxemburg. Charles' proposals to establish six new
bishoprics, plans invariably thwarted by the Eoman Curia,
were meant to give the Low Countries a national episcopate.
§ 2. The beginnings of the Reformation
The people of the Netherlands had been singularly
i prepared for the great religious revival of the sixteenth
century by the work of the Brethren of the Cominon Lot
and their schools. It was the aim of Gerard Groot, their
founder, and also of Florentius Eadevynszoon, his great
educational assistant, to see " that the root of study and
the mirror of life must, in the first place, be the Gospel of
Christ." Their pupils were taught to read the Bible in
Latin, and the Brethren contended publicly for translations
of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongues. There is evidence
to show that the Vulgate was well known in the Nether-
lands in the end of the fifteenth century, and a trans-
lation of the Bible into Dutch was published at Delft in
1477^ Small tracts against Indulgences, founded probably
on the reasonings of Pupper and Wessel, had been in
circulation before Luther had nailed his Theses to the door
of All Saints' church in Wittenberg. Hendrik of Zutphen,
Prior of the Augustinian Eremite convent at Antwerp,
had been a pupil of Staupitz, a fellow student with Luther,
and had spread Evangelical teaching not only among his
order, but throughout the town.^ It need be no matter
^ Van der Meersch, liecherches sur la vie et Ics travaux des imprimeurs
beiges et hollandais, pp. 142-144; cf. \\a\ther, Die deutsche jBibel'uberseztu7igen
des Mittelalters, p. 652.
^ Alcander, writing to the Cardinal de' Medici (Sept. Sth, 1520),
BEGINNINGS OF THE REFORMATION 229
for surprise, then, that Luther's writings were widely
circulated in the Netherlands, and that between 1513 and
1531 no fewer than twenty-five translations of the Bible
orjof the New Testament had appeared in Dutch, Flemish,
and French.
When Aleander was in the Netherlands, before attend-
ing the Diet of Worms he secured the burning of eighty
Lutheran and other books at Louvain ; ^ and when he came
back ten months later, he had regular literary auto-da-fis.
On Charles' return from the Diet of Worms, he issued a
proclamation to all his subjects in the Netherlands against
Luther, his books and his followers, and Aleander made
full use of the powers it gave. Four hundred Lutheran
books were burnt at Antwerp, three hundred of them
seized by the poHce in the stalls of the booksellers, and
one hundred handed over by the owners ; three hundred
were burnt at Ghent, " part of them printed here and part
in Germany," says the Legate ; and he adds that " many
of them were very well bound, and one gorgeou-sly in
velvet." About a month later he is forced to confess
that these burnings had not made as much impression
as he' had hoped, and that he wishes the Emperor
would " burn alive half a dozen Lutherans and con-
fiscate their property." Such a proceeding would make all
see him to be the really Christian prince that he .is.-
Next year (1522) Charles established the Inquisition
within the seventeen provinces. It was a distinctively
civil institution, and this was perhaps due to the fact
that there was little correspondence between the civil
and ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the Netherlands ; but it
must not be forgotten that the Kings of Spain had used
the Holy Office for the purpose of stamping out political
attributes the spread of Lutheranism in the Netherlands to tlie teacliing of
Erasmus and of the Prior of the Augustinians at Antwerp. — Brieger,
Aleander und Luthe?', 1521 ; Die vcrvollstdn<ti(jten Aleander- Depeschen
(Gotha, 1834), p. 249.
^ Kalkoff, Die Depeschen des nnntius Aleander (Halle a S. 1897), p. 20.
- Brieger, Aleander und Luther; Die vervollstandiytcu Aleander-
Drpeschev, pp. 249, 252, 262.
230 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
and local opposition, and also that the civil courts were
usually more energetic and more severe than the ecclesi-
astical The man appointed was unworthy of any place
of important trust. Francis van de Hulst, although he
had been the Prince's counsellor in Brabant, was a man
accused both of bigamy and murder, and was hopelessly
devoid of tact. He quarrelled violently with the High
Court of Holland ; and the Eegent, Margaret of Austria,
who had resumed her functions, found herself constantly
compromised by his continual defiance of local privileges.
He was a " wonderful enemy to learning," says Erasmus.
His colleague, Nicolas van Egmont, a Carmelite monk,
is described by the same scholar as " a madman with
a sword put into his hand who hates me worse than
he does Luther." The two men discredited the In-
quisition from its beginning. Erasmus affected to believe
that the Emperor could not know what they were doing.
The first victim was Cornelius Graphaeus, town clerk
of Antwerp, a poet and Humanist, a friend of Erasmus ;
and his offence was that he had published an edition of
John Pupper of Goch's booJ%:, entitled the Liberty of the
Christian Religion^ with a preface of his own. The
unfortunate man was set on a scaffold in Brussels, com-
pelled to retract certain propositions which were said
to be contained in the preface, and obliged to throw the
preface itself into a fire kindled on the scaffold for the
purpose. He was dismissed from his office, declared
incapable of receiving any other employment, compelled
to repeat his recantation at Antwerp, imprisoned for two
years, and finally banished.^
The earliest deaths were those of Henry Voes and
John Esch, who have already been mentioned. Their
Prior, Hendrik of Zutphen, escaped from the dungeon
in which he had been confined. Luther commemorated
them in a long hymn, entitled A New Soiifj of the two
^ Graphaeus' appeal to the Chancellor of the Court of Brabant is printed
in full in Brandt's History of the Reforviation , . . in the Low Countries
(Loudon. 1720), i. 42.
BEGINNINGS OF THE REFORMATION 231
Martyrs of Christ burnt at Brussels by the Sophists of
Louvain :
" Der erst recht wol Johannes heyst,
So reych an Gottes hulden
Seyn Bruder Henrch nach dem geyst,
Eyn rechter Christ on schulden :
Vonn dysser welt gescheyden synd,
Sye hand die kron erworben,
Recht wie die frumen gottes kind
Fur seyn wort synd gestorben,
Sein Marter synd sye worden."^
Charles issued proclamation after proclamation, each
of increasing severity. It was forbidden to print any
books unless they had been first examined and approved
by the censors (April 1st, 1524). "All open and secret
meetings in order to read and preach the Gospel, the
Epistles of St. Paul, and other spiritual writings," were
forbidden (Sept. 2oth, 1525), as also to discuss the Holy
Faith, the Sacraments, the Power of the Pope and
Councils, "in private houses and at meals." This was
repeated on March 14th, 1526, and on July 17th tliere
was issued a long edict, said to have been carefully
drafted by the Emperor himself, forbidding all meetings to
read or preach about the Gospel or other holy writings in
Latin, Flemish, or Walloon. In the preamble it is said
that ignorant persons have begun- to expound Scripture,
that even regular and secular clergy ■ have presumed to
teach the " errors and sinister doctrines of Luther and
his adherents," and that heresies are increasing in the land.
Then followed edicts against unlicensed books, and against
monks who had left their cloisters (Jan. 28th, 1528);
against the possession of Lutheran books, commanding
them upon pain of death to be delivered up (Oct. 14th,
1529); against printing unlicensed books — the penalties
being a public whipping on the scatiold, branding with a
red-iron, or the loss of an eye or a hand, at the discretion
^ Wackeraafjel, Das deutsche Kirchenlicd von dcr dllcsUn Zcit bis a/i zu
Avfaiig des xvii. Jahrhn^ulcrts, iii. 3.
232 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
of the judge (Dec. 7th, 1530); against heretics "who
are more numerous than ever," against certain books of
which a long list is given, and against certain hymns
which increase the zeal of the heretics (Sept. 22nd, 1540) ;
against printing and distributing unlicensed books in the
Italian, Spanish, or English languages (Dec. 18th, 1544);
warning all schoolmasters about the use of unlicensed
books in their schools, and giving a list of those only
which are permitted (July 31st, 1546). The edict of
1546 was followed by a long list of prohibited books,
among which are eleven editions of the Vulgate printed
by Protestant firms, six editions of the Bible and three of
the New Testament in Dutch, two editions of the Bible
in French, and many others. Lastly, an edict of April
29th, 1550, confirmed all the previous edicts against
heresy and its spread, and intimated that the Inquisitors
would proceed against heretics " notwithstanding any
privileges to the contrary, which are abrogated and
annulled by this edict." This was a clear threat that
the terrible Spanish Inquisition was to be established in
the Netherlands, and provoked such remonstrances that the
edict was modified twice (Sept. 25th, Nov. 5th) before it
was finally accepted as legal within the seventeen provinces.
All these edicts were directed against the Lutheran
or kindred teaching. They had nothing to do with the
Anabaptist movement, which called forth a special and
different set of edicts. It seems against all evidence to
say that the persecution of the Lutherans had almost
ceased during the last years of Charles' rule in the
Netherlands, and Philip ii. could declare with almost
perfect truth that his edicts were only his father's re-issued.
The continuous repetition and increasing severity of
the edicts revealed not merely that persecution did not
hinder the spread of the Keformed faith, but that the
edicts themselves were found difficult to enforce. What
Charles would have done had he been able to govern
the country himself it is impossible to say. He became
liarder and more intolerant of differences in matters of
BEGINNINGS OF THE REFORMATION 233
doctrine as years went on, and in his latest days is said to
have regretted that he had allowed Luther to leave Worms
alive ; and he might have dealt with the Protestants of the
seventeen provinces as his son afterwards did. His aunt,
Margaret of Austria, who was Eegent till 1530, had no
desire to drive matters to an extremity ; and his sister
Mary, who ruled from 1530 till the abdication of Charles
in 1555, was suspected in early life of being a Lutheran
herself. She never openly joined the Lutheran Church as
did her sister the Queen of Denmark, but she confessed
her sympathies to Charles, and gave them as a reason for
reluctance to undertake the regency of the Netherlands.
It may therefore be presumed that the severe edicts were
not enforced with undue stringency by either Margaret of
Ausfcria or by the widowed Queen of Hungary. There is
also evidence to show that these proclamations denouncing
and menacing the unfortunate Protestants of the Netherlands
were not looked on with much favour by large sections of
the population. Officials were dilatory, magistrates, were
known to have warned suspected persons to escape before
the police came to arrest them ; even to have given them
facilities for escape after sentence had been delivered.
Passive resistance on the part of the inferior authorities
frequently interposed itself between the Emperor and the
execution of his bloodthirsty proclamations. Yet the
number of Protestant martyrs was large, and women as
well as men suffered torture and death rather than deny
their faith.
The edicts against conventicles deterred neitlier
preachers nor audience. The earliest missioneis were
priests and monks who had become convinced of the errors
of Eomanism. Later, preachers were trained in the south
German cities and in Geneva, that nursery of daring agents
of the Reformed propaganda. But if trained teachers were
lacking, members of the congregation took their place at the
peril of their lives. Brandt relates how numbers of people
were accustomed to meet for service in a shipwright's yard
at Antwerp to hear a monk who had been " proclaimed " :
234 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
" The teacher, by some chance or other, could not appear,
and one of the company named Nicolas, a person well
versed in Scripture, thought it a shame that such a
congregation, hungering after the food of the Word, should
depart without a little spiritual nourishment ; wherefore,
climbing the mast of a ship, he taught the people according
to his capacity ; and on that account, and for the sake of
the reward that was set upon the preacher, he was seized by
two butchers and delivered to the magistrates, who caused
him to be put into a sack and thrown into the river, where
he was drowned/'^
§ 3. The Anabaptists,
The severest persecutions, however, before the rule of
Philip II., were reserved for those people who are called
the Anabaptists.^ We find several edicts directed against
them solely. In February 1532 it was forbidden to
harbour Anabaptists, and a price of 12 guilders was
offered to informants. Later in the same year an edict
was published which declared " that all who had been re-
baptized, were sorry for their fault, and, in token of their
repentance, had gone to confession, would be admitted to
mercy for that time only, provided they brought a certificate
from their confessor within twenty-four days of the date of
the edict ; those who continued obdurate were to be treated
with the utmost rigour of the laws" (Feb. 1533). Ana-
baptists who had abjured were ordered to remain near their
dwelling-places for the space of a year, " unless those who
were engaged in the herring fishery" (June 1534). In
1535 the severest edict against the sect was published.
^ Brandt, History of the Reformation in the Low Countries (London, 1720),
p. 51.
2 The history of the struggle with the Anabaptists of the Netherlands
is related at length by S. Blaupot ten Gate in Geschiedenis der Doopgezinden
tTi i^Westond (Leeuwarden, 1839) ; Geschiedenis der Doopgezinden in Groningen
(Oberijssel, 1842) ; Geschiedeniss der Doopgezinden in Holland en Gelderland
(Amsterdam, 1847). A summary of the history of the Anabaptists is
given in Heath's Anahaptism (London, 1895), which is much more accurate
than the usual accounts.
THE ANABAPTISl^S 235
All who had " seduced or perverted any to this sect, or
had rebaptized them," were to suffer death by fire; all
who had suffered themselves to be rebaptized, or who had
harboured Anabaptists, and who recanted, were to be
favoured by being put to death by the sword; women
were " only to be buried alive." ^
To understand sympathetically that multiform move-
ment which was called in the sixteenth century Anabaptism,
it is necessary to remember that it was not created by the
Eeformation, although it certainly received an impetus
from the inspiration of the age. Its roots can be traced
back for some centuries, and its pedigree has at least two
stems which are essentially distinct, and were only occasion-
ally combined. The one stem is the successions of the
Brethren, a medii^val, anti-clerical body of Christians whose
history is written only in the records of Inquisitors of the
mediaeval Church, where they appear under a variety of
names, but are universally said to prize the Scriptures
and to accept the Apostles' Creed.^ The other existed
in the continuous uprisings of the poor — peasants in
rural districts and the lower classes in the towns —
against the rich, which were a feature of the later Middle
Ages.^
So far as the Netherlands- are concerned, these popular
outbreaks had been much more frequent among the towns'
population than in the rural districts. The city patriciate
ordinarily controlled the magistracy; but when flagrant
cases of oppression arose, all the judicial, financial, and
other functions of government v/ere sure to be swept out
of their hands in an outburst of popular fury. So much
was this the case, that the real holders of power in the
towns in the Netherlands during the first half of the
sixteenth century were the artisans, strong in their trade
organisations. They had long known their power, and had
been accustomed to exert it. The blood of a turbulent
^ Cf. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry
VIII., IV. iii. 2685 {Halket to Taller).
3 Cf. below, pp. 432/. » Cf. i. 96/.
236 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
aDcestry ran in their veins — of men who could endure for
a time, but who, when roused by serious oppression, had
been accustomed to defend themselves, and to give stroke
for stroke. It is only natural to find among the artisans
of the Flemish and Dutch towns a curious mingling of
sublime self-sacrifice for what they believed to be the
truth, of the mystical exaltation of the martyr occasion-
ally breaking out in hysterical action, and the habit of
defending themselves against almost any odds.
So far as is known, the earliest Anabaptist martyrs
were Jan Walen and two others belonging to Waterlandt.
They were done to death in a peculiarly atrocious way at
The Hague in 1527. Instead of being burnt alive, they
were chained to a stake at some distance from a huge fire,
and were slowly roasted to death. This frightful punish-
ment seems to have been reserved for the Anabaptist
martyrs. It was repeated at Haarlem in 1532, when a
woman was drowned and her husband with two others
was roasted alive. Some time in 1530, Jan Volkertz
founded an Anabaptist congregation in Amsterdam which
became so large as to attract the attention of the
authorities. The head of the police (schout) in the city was
ordered to apprehend them. Volkertz delivered himself
up voluntarily. The greater part of the accused received
timely warning from the schoufs wife. Nine were taken
by night in their beds. These with their pastor were
carried to The Hague and beheaded by express order of
the Emperor. He also commanded that their heads
should be sent to Amsterdam, where they were set on
poles in a circle, the head of Volkertz being in the centre
This ghastly spectacle was so placed that it could be seen
from the ships entering and leaving the harbour. All
these martyrs, and many others whose deaths are duly
recorded, were followers of Melchior Hoffman. Hoffman's
views were those of the " Brethren " of the later Middle
Ages, the Old Evangelicals as they were called. In a
paper of directions sent to Emden to assist in the
organisation of an Anabaptist congregation there, he says :
THE ANABAPTISTS 237
"God's community knows no head but Christ. No
other can be endured, for it is a brother- and sisterhood.
The teachers have none who rule them spiritually but
Christ. Teachers and ministers are not lords. The pastors
have no authority except to preach God's Word and punish
ains. A bishop must be elected out of his community.
Where a pastor has thus been taken, and the guidance
committed to him and to his deacon, a community should
provide properly for those who help to build the Lord's
house. When teachers are thus found, there is no fear
that the communities will suffer spiritual hunger. A true
preacher would willingly see the whole community prophesy."
But the persecution, with its peculiar atrocities, had
been acting in its usual way on the Anabaptists of the
Netherlands. They had been tortured on the rack, scourged,
imprisoned in dungeons, roasted to death before slow fires,
and had seen their women drowned, buried alive, pressed into
coffins too small for their bodies till their ribs were broken,
others stamped into them by the feet of the executioners.
It is to be wondered at that those who stood firm sometimes
gave way to hysterical excesses ; that their leaders began
to preach another creed than that of passive resistance ;
that wild apocalyptic visions were reported and believed ?
Melchior Hoffman had been imprisoned in Strassburg
in 1533, and a new leader arose in the Netherlands— Jan
Matthys, a baker of Haarlem. Under his guidance an
energetic propaganda was carried On in the Dutch towns,
and hundreds of converts were made. One hundred persons
were baptized in one day in February (1 534),; before the
end of March it was reported that two-thirds of the popu-
lation in Monnikendam were Anabaptists ; and a similar
state of matters existed in many of the larger Dutcli
towns. Da venter, Zwolle, and Kampen were almost wholly
Anabaptist. The Government " made great exertions to
crush the movement. Detachments of soldiers were
divided into bands of fifteen or twenty, and patrolled the
environs of the cities, making midnight visitations, and
haling men and women to prison until the dungeons were
overcrowded with captured Anabaptists.
238 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
Attempts were made by the persecuted to leave the
country for some more hospitable place where they could
worship God in peace in the way their consciences directed
them. East Friesland had once been a haven, but was so no
longer. Munster offered a refuge. Ships were chartered,
— thirty of them, — and the persecuted people proposed to
sail round the north of Friesland, land at the mouth of the
Ems, and travel to Munster by land.^ The Emperor's ships
intercepted the little fleet, sank five of the vessels with all
the emigrants on board, and compelled the rest to return.
The leaders found on board were decapitated, and their
heads stuck on poles to warn others. Hundreds from
the provinces of Guelderland and Holland attempted
the journey by land. They piled their bits of poor furni-
ture and bundles of clothes on waggons ; some rode horses,
most trudged on foot, the women and children, let us hope,
getting an occasional ride on the waggons. Soldiers were
sent to intercept them. The leaders were beheaded, the
men mostly imprisoned, and the women and children sent
back to their towns and villages.
Then, and not till they had exhausted every method of
passive resistance, the Anabaptists began to strike back.
They wished to seize a town already containing a large
Anabaptist population, and hold it as a city of refuge.
Daventer, which was full of sympathisers, was their first
aim. The plot failed, and the burgomaster's son Willem,
one of the conspirators, was seized, and with two com-
panions beheaded in the market-place (Dec. 25th, 1534).
Their next attempt was on Leyden. It was called a plot
' Several rererences to the Anabaptists of the Low Countries are to be
found in the Letters and Pajjers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry
VIII. Hackett, writing to Cromwell, says that "divers places are affected
by this new sect of * rebaptisement,' " vii. p. 136. He tells about the ship-
loads of emigrants (pp. 165, 166), and says that they were so sympathised
with, that it was difficult to enlist soldiers to light against them ; that the
Regent had sent 10,000 ducats to help the Bisliop of Miinster to crush
them (p. 167); and a wild report was current that Henry viii. h*id sent
money to the Anabaptists of Munster in revenge for the Pope's refusing his
divorce (p. 18.5).
THE ANABAPTISTS 230
to burn the town. The magistrates got word of it, and, by
ordering the great town-clock to be stopped, disconcerted
the plotters. Fifteen men and five women were seized • /
the men were decapitated, and the women drowned (Jan.
1535). Next month (Feb. 28th, 1535), Jan van Geelen,
leading a band of three hundred refugees through Friesland,
was overtaken by some troops of soldiers. The little
company entrenched themselves, fought bravely for some
days, until nearly all were killed. The survivors were
almost all captured and put to death, the men by the
sword, and the women by drowning. One hundred soldiers
fell in the attack. A few months later (May 1535), an
attempt was made to seize Amsterdam. It was headed by
van Geelen, the only survivor of the skirmish in Friesland.
He and his companions were able to get possession of the
Stadthaus, and held it against the town's forces until cannon
were brought to batter down their defences.
In the early days of the same year an incident occurred
which shows how, under the strain of persecution, an hysteri-
cal exaltation took possession of some of these poor people.
It is variously reported. According to Brandt, seven men
and five women having stript off their clothes, as a sign,
they said, that they spoke the naked truth, ran througli
the streets of Amsterdam, crying Woe! Woe! Woe! The
Wrath of God ! They were apprehended, and slaughtered
in the usual way. The woman in. whose house they had
met was hanged at her own door.
The insurrections were made the pretext for still fiercer
persecutions. The Anabaptists were bunted out, tortured
and slain without any attempt being made by the authori-
ties to discriminate between those who had and those
who had not been sharers in any insurrectionary attempt.
It is alleged that over thirty thousand people were put to
death in the Netherlands" during the reign of Charles v.
Many of the victims had no connection with Anabaptism
whatsoever ; they were quiet followers of Luther or of
Calvin. The authorities discriminated between them iff
their proclamations, but not in the persecution.
240 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
§ 4. Philip of Spain and the Netherlands.
How long the Netherlands would have stood the con-
tinual drain of money and the severity of the persecution
which the foreign and religious policy of Charles enforced
upon them, it is impossible to say. The people of the
country were strongly attached to him, as he was to them.
He had been born and had grown, from childhood to manhood
among them. Their languages, French and Flemish, were
the only speech he could ever use with ease. He had been
ruler in the Netherlands before he became King of Spain,
and long before he was called to fill the imperial throne.
When he resolved to act on his long meditated scheme of
abdicating in favour of his son Philip, it was to the Nether-
lands that he came. Their nobles and people witnessed
the scene with hardly less emotion than that which showed
itself in the faltering speech of the Emperor.
The ceremony took place in the great Hall of the palace
in Brussels (Oct. 25th, 1555), in presence of the delegates
of the seventeen provinces. Mary, the widowed Queen of
Hungary, who had governed the land for twenty-five years,
witnessed the scene which was to end her rule. Philip,
who was to ruin the work of consolidation patiently planned
and executed by his father and his aunt, was present, sum-
moned from his uncongenial task of eating roast beef and
drinking English ale in order to conciliate his new subjects
across the Channel, and from the embarrassing endearments
of his elderly spouse. The Emperor, aged by toil rather
than by years, entered the Hall leaning heavily on his
favourite page and trusty counsellor, the youthful William,
Prince of Orange, who was to become the leader of the
revolt against Philip's rule, and to create a new Protestant
State, the United Provinces.
The new lord of the Netherlands was then twenty-
eight. In outward appearance he was a German like his
father, but in speech he was a Spaniard. He had none of
his father's external geniality, and could never stoop to win
men to his ends. But Philip ii. was much liker Charles V;
PHILIP OF SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS 241
than many historians seem wilHng to admit. Both had
the same slow, patient industry — but in the son it was
slower ; the same cynical distrust of all men ; the same
belief in the divine selection of the head of the House of
Hapsburg to guide all things in State and Church irrespective
of Popes or Kings — only in the son it amounted to a sort
of gloomy mystical assurance; the same callousness to
human suffering, and the same utter inabiUty to comprehend
the force of strong rehgious conviction. Philip was an
inferior edition of his father, succeeding to his father's
ideas, pursuing the same policy, using the same methods,
but handicapped by the fact that he had not originated but
had inherited both, and with them the troubles brouglit
in their train.
Philip n. spent the first four years of his reign in the
Netherlands, and during that short period of personal rule
his policy had brought into being all the more important
sources of dissatisfaction which ended in the revolt. Yet
his policy was the same, and his methods were not different
from those of his father. In one respect at least Charles
had never spared the Netherlands. That country had to
pay, as' no other part of his vast possessions was aslved to
do, the price of his foreign policy, and Charles had wrung
unexampled sums from his people.
When Philip summoned the States General (March
12th, 1556) and asked them for a very large grant (Fl.
1,300,000), he was only following his fathers example,
and on that occasion was seeking money to li(|uidate the
deficit which his father had bequeathed. Was it that tlie
people of the Netherlands had resolved to end the i)ractice
uf making them pay for a foreign policy which had hitherto
concerned them little, or was it because they could not
endure the young Spaniard who. could not speak tu them
in their own language ? Would Charles have been refused
as well as Philip ? Who can say ?
When Philip obtained a Bull from Po})e Paul iv. fur
creating a territorial episcopate in the Xetherlands, he was
only carrying out the policy which his father had sketched
1 6**
242 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
as early as 1522, and which but for the shortness of the
pontificate of Hadrian vi. would undoubtedly have been
executed in 1524 without any popular opposition. Charles'
scheme contemplated six bishoprics, Philip's fourteen ; that
was the sole difference ; and from the ecclesiastical point of
view Philip's was probably the better. Why then the bitter
opposition to the change in 1557 ? Most historians seem
to think that had Charles been ruling, there would have
been few murmurs. Is that so certain ? The people
feared the institution of the bishoprics, because they
dreaded and hated an Inquisition which would override
their local laws, rights, and privileges ; and Charles had
been obliged to modify his "Placard" of 1549 against
heresy, because towns and districts protested so loudly
against it. During these early years Philip made no
alterations on his father's proclamations against heresy.
He contented himself with reissuing the *' Placard " of
1549 as that had been amended in 1550 after the popular
protests. The personality of Philip was no doubt objection-
able to his subjects in the Netherlands, but it cannot be
certainly affirmed that had Charles continued to reign there
would have been no widespread revolt against his financial,
ecclesiastical, and religious policy. The Eegent Mary had
been finding her task of ruling more and more difficult. A
few weeks before the abdication, when the Emperor wished
his sister to continue in the Eegency, she wrote to him :
" I could not live among these people even as a private
citizen, for it would be impossible to do my duty towards
God and my Prince. As to governing them, I take God to
witness that the task is so abhorrent to me that I would
rather earn my daily bread by labour than attempt it."
In 1559 (Aug. 26th), Philip left the Netherlands never
to return. He had selected Margaret of Parma, his half-
sister, the illegitimate daughter cf Charles v., for Eegent.
]\Iargaret had been born and brought up in the country ;
she knew the language, and she had been so long away from
her native land that she was not personally committed to
PHILIP OP SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS 243
any policy nor acquainted with the leaders of any of the
parties.
The power of the Regent, nominally extensive, was in
reality limited by secret instructions.^ She was ordered to
put in execution the edicts against heresy without any
modification ; and she was directed to submit to the advice
given her by three Councils, a command which placed her
under the supervision of the three men selected by Philip to
be the presidents of these Councils. The Council of State
was the most important, and was entrusted with the
manao^ement of the whole foreic^n and home administration
of the country. It consisted of the Bishop of Arras
(Antoine Perronet de Granvelle, afterwards Cardinal de
Granvelle) ; ^ the Baron de Barlaymont, who was President
of the Council of Finance ; Vigilius van Aytta, a learned
lawyer from Friesland, " a small brisk man, with long
yellow hair, glittering green eyes, fat round rosy cheeks,
and flowing beard," who was President of the Privy Council,
and controlled the administration of law and justice ;- and
two of the Netheilaud nobles, Lamoral, Count of Egmont
and Prince of Gavre, and William, Prince of Orange.
The two nobles were seldom consulted or even invited to
be present. The three Presidents were the Considta, or
secret body of confidential advisers imposed by Philip upon
his Piegent, without whose advice nothing was to be
attempted. Of the three, the Bishop of Arras (Cardinal de
^ The Royal Academy of Belgium has published (Brussels, 1877-96)
the Correspondancc du Cardinal de Granvelle in 12 volumes, and in tlie
CollecLion de documents inedits sur VHistoire de France there are tlie Papiera
d'etat du Cardinal de Granvelle in 9 vols., edited by C. Weiss (Paris, 1841-
52). These volumes reveal the inner history of the revolt in the Netherlands.
The documents which refer to the revolt in tlie Papiers d'tiai begin with
p. 588 of vol. V. They show how, from tlie very first, Philip il. urged the
extirpation of heresy as the most important, work to be undertaken by his
Government ; cf. Papiers d' £tat, v. 591.
2 "Philip struck the keynote of his reign on the occasion of his first
public appearance as King by j)residing over one of the most splendid atUo-
da-fes that had ever been seen in Spain (Valladolid, Oct. 18th. 1559)."
Ca)nbridge Modern Histonj, iii. 482. It is a singular coniiiiHjitiry on six-
teenth century Romanism, tl it to burn a large number of Itllow-meu was
called "an act of faith."
244 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
Granvelle) was the most important, and the government
was practically placed in his hands by his master. Behind
the ConsuUa was Philip ii. himself, who in his business
room in the Escurial at Madrid issued his orders, repressing
every tendency to treat the people with moderation and
humanity, thrusting aside all suggestions of wise tolerance,
and insisting that his own cold-blooded policy should be
carried out in its most objectionable details. It was not
until the publication of de Granvelle's State Papers and
Correspondence that it came to be known how much the
Bishop of Arras has been misjudged by history, how he
remonstrated unavailingly with his master, how he was
forced to put into execution a sanguinary policy of repres-
sion which was repugnant to himself, and how Philip
compelled him to bear the obloquy of liis own misdeeds.
The correspondence also reveals the curiously minute
information which Philip must have privately received, for
he was able to send to the Eegent and the Bishop the
names, ages, personal appearance, occupations, residence of
numbers of obscure people whom he ordered to execution
for their religious opinions.^ No rigour of persecution
seemed able to prevent the spread of the Eeformation.^
The Government — Margaret and her ConsuUa — ofiended
grievously not merely the people, but the nobility of the
Netherlands. The nobles saw their services and positions
treated as things of no consequence, and the people
witnessed with alarm that the local charters and privileges
of the land — charters and rights which Philip at his
coronation had sworn to maintain — were totally disregarded.
Gradually all classes of the population were united in a
silent opposition. The Prince of Orf«nge and Count
Egmont became almost insensibly the leaders.
They had been dissatisfied with their position on the
Council of State ; they had no real share in the business ;
the correspondence was not submitted to them, and they
^ Papiers d'etat du Cardinal de Granvelle, v. pp. 558, 591.
- Gachard, Correspondance de Guillaume le Tacitume (Letters frora the
Pu-gcnt to Pliiiip il.), i. 382-86.
PHILIP OF SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS 245
knew such details only as Granvelle chose to communicate
to them. Their first overt act was to resign the commis-
sions they held in the Spanish troops stationed in the
country ; their second, to write to the King asking him to
relieve them of their position on the Council .of State,
telling him that matters of gi'eat importance were con-
tinually transacted without their knowledge or concurrence,
and that in the circumstances they could not conscientiously
continue to sustain the responsibilities of office.^
The opposition took their stand on three things, all of
which hung together — the presence of Spanish troops on
the soil of the Netherlands, the cruelties perpetrated in
the execution of the Placards against heresy, and the insti-
tution- of the new bishoprics in accordance with the Bull
of Pope Paul IV., reaffirmed by Pius iv. in 1560 (Jan.).
The common fighting ground for the opposition to all the
three was the invasion of the charters and privileges
of the various provinces which these measures necessarily
involved, and the consequent violation of the King's coro-
nation oath.
Philip had solemnly promised to withdraw the Spanish
troops within three or four months after he left the
country. They had remained for fourteen, and the whole
land cried out against the pillage and rapine which accom-
panied their presence. The people of Zeeland declared
that they would rather see the ocean submerge their
country — that they would rather perish, men, women, and
children, in the waves — than endure longer the outrages
which these mercenaries inflicted upon them. They re-
fused to repair the Dykes. The presence of these troops
had been early seen to be a degradation to his country by
William of Orange.^ At the States General held on the
eve of Philip's departure, he had urged the Assembly to
^ Gachard, Correspondence dc Guillaume le Tacitume, etc. ii. 42/., 106-
110, 170.
- He wrote to Philip about their excesses as early as Dec. 29th, 1555,
Gachard, Corrcspomiance de Guillauvie le Tacitume, i. 282, and about the
e.xasperation of the Nytherlaiidcrs in conse«iuencc (ibid. i. 291).
246 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
make the departure of the troops a condition of granting
subsidies, and had roused Phihp's wrath in consequence.
He now voiced the cry of the whole country. It was so
strong that Granvelle sent many an urgent request to the
King to sanction their removal ; and at length he and the
Kegent, without waiting for orders, had the troops embarked
for Madrid.
The rigorous repression of heresy compelled the
Government to override the charters of the several pro-
vinces. Many of these charters contained very strong
provisions, and the King had sworn to maintain them.
The constitution of Brabant, known as the joycuse entree
(blyde inkorast), provided that the clergy should not be
given unusual powers ; and that no subject, nor even a
foreign resident, could be prosecuted civilly or criminally
except in the ordinary courts of the land, where he could
answer and defend himself with the help of advocates.
The charter of Holland contained similar provisions. Both
charters declared that if the Prince transgressed these
provisions the subjects were freed from their allegiance.
The inquisitorial courts violated the charters of those and
of the other provinces. The great objection taken to the
increase of the episcopate, according to the provisions of
the Bulls of Paul iv. and of Pius iv., was that it involved
a still greater infringement of the chartered rights of the
land. For example, the Bulls provided that the bishops
were to appoint nine canons, who were to assist them in
all inquisitorial cases, while at least one of them was to
be an Inquisitor charged with ferreting out and punishing
heresy. This was apparently their great charm for Philip
II. He desired an instrument to extirpate heretics. He
knew that the Eeformation was making great progress in
the Netherlands, especially in the great commercial cities.
'* I would lose all my States and a hundred lives if I had
them," he wrote to the Pope, " rather than be the lord of
heretics."
The opposition at first contented itself with protesting
against the position and rule of Granvelle, and with de-
PHILIP OF SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS 247
manding his recall. Philip came to the reluctant con-
clusion to dismiss his Minister, and did so with more than
his usual duplicity. The nobles returned to the Council,
and the Eegent affected to take their advice. But they
were soon to discover that the recall of the obnoxious
Minister did not make any change in the policy of Philip.
The Eegent read them a letter from Philip ordering
the publication and enforcement of the Decrees of the
Council of Trent in the Netherlands.^ The nobles protested
vehemently on the ground that this would mean a still
further invasion of the privileges of the provinces. After
long deliberation, it was resolved to send Count Egraont to
Madrid to lay the opinions of the Council before the King.
The debate was renewed on the instructions to be given to
the delegate. Those suggested by the President, Vigilius,
were colourless. Then William the Silent spoke out. His
speech, a long one, full of suppressed passionate sympathy
with his persecuted fellow-countrymen, made an extra-
ordinary impression. It is thus summarised by Brandt :
That they ought to speak their minds freely ; that there
were such commotions and revolutions on account of religion
in all the neighbouring countries, that it was impossible to
maintain the present regime, and think to suppress disturb-
ances by means of Placards, Inquisitions, and Bishops ; that
the King was mistaken if he proposed to maintain the
Decrees of the Council of Trent in these Provinces whicli
lay so near Germany, where all the Princes, Roman Catholics
as well as Protestants, have justly rejected them ; that it
would be better that His Majesty should tolerate these
things as other Princes were obliged to do, and annul or else
moderate the punishments proclaimed in the I^lacard^ ; th;in
though he himself liad resolved to adhere to the Cathnljc
religion, yet he could not approve that Princes should aim
at dominion over the souls of men, or deprive them of tne
freedom of their faith and religion.^
^ In a letter to the Regent (March 16th, 1566), William declared that the
heads of the policy of Philip which he most strongly disapproved of were :
Ventrcte'tteinent' du concile de Trente^ favoriser les inquisiteurs ou leur office
ct ex^cuter sans nnlle dissimulation les jilacars. Correspond ance, etc. ii. 129,
- Brandt, The Ilis'oni nf the Rrformation, etc. i. 150.
248 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
The instructions given to Egmont were accordingly
both full and plain-spoken.
Count Egmont departed leisurely to Madrid, was well
received by Philip, and left thoroughly deceived, perhaps
self-deceived, about the King's intentions. He had a rude
awakening when the sealed letter he bore was opened and
read in the Council. It announced no real change in
policy, and in the matter of heresy showed that the King's
resolve was unaltered. A despatch to the Eegent (Nov.'
5th, 1565) was still more unbending. Philip would not
enlarge the powers of the Council in the Netherlands ; he
peremptorily refused to summon the States General; and
he ordered the immediate publication and enforcement of
the Decrees of the Council of Trent in every town and
village in the seventeen provinces. True to the policy of
his house, the Decrees of Trent were to be proclaimed in
Jiis name, not in that of the Pope. It was the beginning
of the tragedy, as William of Orange remarked.
The effect of the order was immediate and alarming.
The Courts of Holland and Brabant maintained that the
Decrees infringed their charters, and refused to permit
their publication. Stadtholders and magistrates declared
that they would rather resign office than execute decrees
which would compel them to burn over sixty thousand
of their fellow-countrymen. Trade ceased ; industries died
out ; a bhght fell on the land. Pamphlets full of passion-
ate appeals to the people to put an end to the tyranny
were distributed and eagerly read. In one of them, which
took the form of a letter to the King, it was said :
" We are ready to die for the Gospel, but we read there-
in, ' Eender unto Caesar the things which are Ci3esar's, and
unto God the things that are God's.' We thank God that
even our enemies are constrained to bear witness to our
piety and innocence, for it is a common saying : ' He does
not swear, for he is a Protestant. He is not an inmioral
man, nor a drunkard, for he belongs to the new sect ' ; yet
we are subjected to every kind of punishment that can be
invented to torment us." ^
^ Brandt, The History of the Ee/ormation, etc. i. 160.
PHILIP OF SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS 249
The year 1566 saw the origin of a new confederated
opposition to Philip's mode of ruling the Netherlands.
Francis Du Jon, a young Frenchman of noble birth, belong-
ing to Bourges, had studied for the ministry at Geneva,
and had been sent as a missioner to the Netherlands, where
his learning and eloquence had made a deep impression on
young men of the upper classes. His life was in constant
peril, and he was compelled to flit secretly from the house
of one sympathiser to that of another. During the
festivities which accompanied the marriage of the young
Alexander of Parma with Maria of Portugal, he was con-
cealed in the house of the Count of Culemburg in Brussels.
On the day of the wedding he preached and prayed with a
small company of young nobles, twenty in all. There and
at other meetings held afterwards it was resolved to form
a confederacy of nobles, all of whom agreed to bind them-
selves to support principles laid down in a carefully drafted
manifesto which went by the name of the Compromise. It
was mainly directed against the Inquisition, which it calls
a tribunal opposed to all laws, divine and human. Copies
passQd from hand to hand soon obtained over two thousand
signatures among the lower nobihty and landed gentry.
M^any substantial burghers also signed. The leading spirits
in the confederacy were Louis of Nassau, the younger
brother of the Prince of Orange, then a Lutheran^; Phihp
de Marnix, lord of Sainte Aldegonde, a Calvinist : and
"Henry Viscount Brederode, a Koman Catholic. The con-
federates declared that they were loyal subjects; but
pledged themselves to protect each other if any of them
were attacked.
The confederates met privately at Breda and Hoogs-
traeten (March 1566), and resolved to present a petition
to the Regent asking that the King should be recommended
to'^lish the Placards and the Inquisition, and that
the Resent should suspend their operation until the
KincT's wishes were known ; also that the States General
should be assembled to consider ether ordinances dangerous
to the country. The Regent had called an assembly of the
250 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
Notables for March 28th, and it was resolved to present
the petition then. The confederation and its Compromise
were rather dreaded by the great nobles who had been the
leaders of the constitutional opposition, and there was some
debate about the presentation of the Bequest The Baron
de Barlaymont went so far as to recommend a massacre of
the petitioners in the audience hall ; but wiser counsels
prevailed. The confederates met and marshalled them-
selves,— two hundred young nobles, — and marched through
the streets to the Palac^, amid the acclamations of the
populace, to present the Request} The Eegent was some-
what dismayed by the imposing demonstration, but
Barlaymont reassured her with the famous words :
" Madame, is your Highness afraid of these beggars {ces
gueux) ? " The deputation was dismissed with fair words,
and the promise that although the Eegent had no power
to suspend the Placards or the Inquisition, there would be
some moderation used until the King's pleasure was known.
Before leaving Brussels, three hundred of the confeder-
ates met in the house of the Count of Culemburg to
celebrate their league at a banquet. The Viscount de
Brederode presided, and during the feast he recalled to
their memories the words of Barlaymont : " They call us
beggars,'' he said ; " we accept the name. We pledge our-
selves to resist the Inquisition, and keep true to the King
and the beggar's wallet." He then produced the leathern
sack of the wandering beggars, strapped it round his shoulder,
and drank prosperity to the cause from a beggar's wooden
bowl. The name and the emblem were adopted with
enthusiasm, and spread far beyond the circle of the con-
federacy."^ Everywhere burghers, lawyers, peasants as well
as nobles appeared wearing the beggar's sack. Medals,
^ Gachard, Correspmidance de Guillaume le Tacitume, ii. 434 jf,
- At meals they sang :
'* Par ee pain, par ce sel, eipar cette besaee.
Jamais les Gueux ne cha,ngero7it pour chose que Vonfasse."
William of Orange wrote to the Regent that he was met in Antwerp by
crowds, shouting Vive les Gueux {Correspondance, ii. 136, etc.).
PHILIP OF SPAIN AND THE NETHERJ.ANDS 251
made first of wax set in a wooden cup, then of gold and
silver, were adopted by the confederated nobles. On the
one side was the effigies of the King, and on the obverse
two hands clasped and the beggar's sack with the motto,
Fidelles au Roi jiisques a porter la hesace (beggar's sack).
All these things were faithfully reported by the
Eegent to Philip, and she besought him either to permit
her to moderate the Placards and the Inquisition, or to
come to the Netherlands himself. He answered, promising
to come, and permitted her some discretion in the matter
of repression of heresy.
Meanwhile the people were greatly encouraged by the
success, or appearance of success, attending the efforts of
the confederates. Eefugees returned from France, Germany,
and Switzerland. Missioners of the Keformed faith came
in great numbers. Field-preachings were held all over
the country. The men came armed, planted sentinels,
placed their women and children within the square, and thus
listened to the services conducted by the excommunicated
ministers. They heard the Scriptures read and prayers
poured forth in their own tongue. They sang hymns and
psalms in French, Flemish, and Dutch. The crowds were
so large, the sentinels so wary, the men so well armed, that
the soldiers dared not attempt to disperse them. At first
the meetings were held at night in woods and 'desolate
places, but immunity ci^ated boldness.
"On July 23rd (1566) the Eeformed rendezvoused in
great numbers in a large meadow not far from (ihent.
There they formed a sort of camp, fortifying themselves
with their waggons, and setting sentinels at all the roads.
Some brought pikes, some hatchets, and otliers guns. In
front of them were pedlars with prohibited books, which
they sold to such as came. They planted several along the
road whose business it was to invite people to come to tlie
preaching and to show them the way. - They made a kind
of pulpit of planks, and set it upon a waggon, from which
the minister preached. When the sermon was ended, all
the congregation sang several })salnis. They also drew
water out of a well or brook near them, and a child was
252 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
baptized. Two days were spent there, and then they
adjourned to Deinsen, then to Ekelo near Bruges, and so
through all "West Flanders." ^
Growmg bolder still, the Reformed met in the environs and
suburbs of the great towns. Bands of men marched
through the streets singing Psalms, either the French
versions of Clement Marot or Beze or the Dutch one of
Peter Dathenus. It was in vain that the Regent issued a
new Placard against the preachers and the conventicles.
It remained a dead letter. In Antwerp, bands of the
Reformed, armed, crowded to the preachings in defiance of
the magistrates, who were afraid of fighting in the streets.
In the emergency the Regent appealed to William of
Orange, and he with difficulty appeased the tumults and
arranged a compromise. The Calvinists agreed to disarm
on the condition that they were allowed the free exercise of
their worship in the suburbs although not within the towns.^
The confederates were so encouraged with their
successes that they thought of attempting more. A great
conference was held at St. Trond in the principality of
Liege (July 1566), attended by nearly two thousand
members. The leader was Louis of Nassau. They
resolved on another deputation to the Regent, and twelve
of their number were selected to present their demands.
These "Twelve Apostles," as the courtiers contemptuously
termed them, declared that the persecution had not been
mitigated as promised, and not obscurely threatened that if
some remedy were not found they might be forced to invoke
foreign assistance. The threat enraged the Regent ; but
she was helpless ; she could only urge that she had
already made representations to the King, and had sent
two members of Council to inform the King about the
condition of the country.
It seemed as if some impression had been made on
Philip. The Regent received a despatch (July 31st, 1566)
^Brarndt^s History of the Be/ormation . . . in the Loiu Countries (Lowlo-n,
1720), i. 172.
- Gachard, Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturnc, ii. 136. /f.
PHILIP OF SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS 253
saying that he was prepared to withdraw the pajwil
Inquisition from the Netherlands, and that he would grant
what toleration was consistent with the maintenance of the
Catholic religion ; only he would in no way consent to a
summoning of the States General.
There was great triumphing in the Netherlands at this
news. Perhaps every one but the Prince of Orange was
more or less deceived by Phihp's duplicity. It is only since
the archives of Simancas have yielded their secrets that its
depth has been known. They reveal that on Aug. 9 th he
executed a deed in which he declared that the promise of
pardon had been won from him by force, and that he did not
mean to keep it, and that on Aug. 12 th he wrote to the Pope
that his declaration to withdraw the Inquisition was a mere
blind. William only knew that the King was levying troops,
and that he was blaming the great nobles of the Nether-
lands for the check inflicted upon him by the confederates.
Long before Philip's real intentions were unmasked, a
series of iconoclastic attacks not only gave the King the
pretext he needed, but did more harm to the cause of the
Eeformation in the Low Countries than all the persecutions
under Charles v. and his son. The origin of these tumul-
tuous proceedings is obscure. According to j^randt, wlio
collects information from all sides :
"Some few of the vilest flf the mob . . . were' those who
began the dance, being hallooed on by nobody knows wliom.
Their arms were staves, hatchets, hammers, ladders, ropes,
and other tools more proper to demolish than to fight with ;
some few were provided with guns and swords. At first
they attacked the crosses and the images that had l)een
erected on the great roads in the country : next, those in
the villages; and, lastly, those in the towns and cities. All
the chapels, churches, and convents which they found shut
they forced open, breaking, tearing, and destroying all the
images, pictures, shrines' and other consecrated thini:s they
met with; nay, some did not scruple to lay tlieir hands ujx)n
libraries, books, writings, monuments, and even on the dead
bodies in churches and churchyards." ^
1 Brandt, Hislory of the li'-fonna/iou, etc. i. lOL
254 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
According to almost all accounts, the epidemic^ for the
madness resembled a disease, first appeared at St. Omer's
(Aug. 14th, 1566), then at Ypres, and extended rapidly
to other towns. It came to a height at Antwerp (16th
and 17th Aug. 1566), when the mob sacked the great
cathedral and destroyed some of its richest treasures.^ An
eye-witness declared that the rioters in the cathedral did
not number more than one hundred men, women, and boys,
drawn from the dregs of the population, and that the
attacks on the other churches were made by small parties
of ten or twelve persons.
These outrages had a disastrous effect on the Eeforma-
tion movement in the Netherlands, both immediately and
in the future. They at once exasperated the more liberal-
minded Koman Catholics and enraged the Kegent : they
began that gradual cleavage which ended in the separation
of the Protestant North from the Komanist South. The
Eegent felt herself justified in practically withdrawing all
the privileges she had accorded to the Eeformed, and in
raising German and Walloon troops to overawe the Pro-
testants. The presence of these troops irritated some of
the Calvinist nobles, and John de Marnix, elder brother of
Sainte Aldegonde, attempted to seize the Island of
Walcheren in order to hold it as a city of refuge for his
persecuted brethren. He was unsuccessful ; a fight took
place not far from Antwerp itself, in which de Marnix was
routed and slain (March 13th, 1567).
§ 5. William of Orange.
Meanwhile William of Orange had come to the conclusion
that Philip was meditating the suppression of the rights and
liberties of the Low Countries by Spanish troops, and was
convinced that the great nobles who had hitherto headed
the constitutional opposition would be the first to be
attacked. He had conferences with Egmont and Hoorn at
^ For this and earlier disturbances at Antwerp, cf. Correspondance de
PhiUp Ji., etc. 1. 321, 327, 379.
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 255
Dendermonde (Oct. 3rd, 1566), and at Willebroek (April
2nd, 1567), and endeavoured to persuade them that the
only course open to them was to resist by force of arms.
His arguments were unavailing, and William sadly deter-
mined that he must leave the country and retire to liis
German estates.
His forebodings were only too correct. Philip had re-
solved to send the Duke of Alva to subdue the Netherlands.
A force of nine thousand veteran Spanish infantry with
thirteen hundred Italian cavalry had been collected from
the garrisons of Lombardy and Naples, and Alva began a
long, difficult march over the Mt. Cenis and throucrh
Franche Comte, Lorraine, and Luxemburg. William' had
escaped just in time. When the Duke arrived in Brussels
and presented his credentials to the Council of State, it
was seen that the King had bestowed on him such
extensive powers that Margaret remained Kegent in name
only. One of his earliest acts was to get possession of
the persons of Counts Egmont and Hoorn, with their
private secretaries, and to imprison Antony van Straelen,
Burgomaster of Antwerp, and a confidential friend of the
Prince of Orange. Many other arrests were made ; and
Alva, having caught his victims, invented an instrument
to help him to dispose of them.
By the mere fiat of his will he created a judicial
chamber, whose decisions were to override those of any
other court of law in the Netherlands, and which was to
be responsible to none, not even to the Council of State.
It was called the Council of Tumults, but is- better known
by its popular name. The Bloody Tribunal. It consisted
of twelve members, among whom were Barlaymont and a
few of the most violent Romanists of the Netherlands ;
but only two, Juan de Vargas and del Eio, both Spaniards,
were permitted to vote and influence the decisions. Del
Rio was a nonentity ; but de Vargas was a very stern
reality — a man of infamous life, equally notorious for the
delight he took in slaughtering his fellow-inen and the
facility with which he murdered tlie Latin language ! He
256 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
brought the whole population of the Netherlands within
the grip of the public executioner by his indictment :
Hceretici fraxerunt templa, honi nihil faxerunt contra ; ergo
debent omnes patibulare ; by which he meant, The heretics
have broken open churches, the O7'thodox have done nothing
to hinder them ; therefore they ought all of thern to be hanged
together. Alva reserved all final decisions for his own
judgment, in order that the work might be thoroughly
done. He wrote to the King, " Men of law only condemn
for crimes that are proved, whereas your Majesty knows
that affairs of State are governed by very different rules
from the laws which they have here."
At its earlier sittings this terrible tribunal defined the
crime of treason, and stated that its punishment was
death. The definition extended to eighteen articles, and
declared it to be treason — to have presented or signed
any petition against the new bishoprics, the Inquisition,
or the Placards ; to have tolerated public preaching
under any circumstances ; to have omitted to resist
icoDOclasm, or field-preaching, or the presentation of the
Bequest ; to have asserted that the King had not the
right to suspend the charters of the provinces ; or to
maintain that the Council of Tumults had not a right to
override all the laws and privileges of the Netherlands.
All these things were treason, and all of them were
capital offences. Proof was not required ; all that was
needed was reasonable suspicion, or rather what the
Duke of Alva believed to be so. The Council soon got
to work. It sent commissioners through every part of
the land — towns, villages, districts — to search for any
who might be suspected of having committed any act
which could be included within their definition of treason.
Informers were invited, were bribed, to come forward ;
and soon shoals of denunciations and evidence flowed in
to them. The accused were brought before the Council,
tried (if the procedure could be called a trial), and
condemned in batches. The records speak of ninety-five,
eighty-four, forty-six, thirty-five at a time. Alva wrote
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 257
to Philip that no fewer than fifteen hundred had been
taken in their beds early on Ash-Wednesday morning, i
and later he announces another batch of eight hundred. m
In each case he adds, " I have ordered all of them to be ^
executed." In view of these records, the language of a
contemporary chronicler does not appeared exaggerated :
"The gallows, the wheel, stakes, trees along the high-
ways, were laden with carcasses or limbs of those wlio had
been hanged, beheaded, or roasted ; so that the air which
God made for the respiration of the living, was now become
the common grave or habitation of the dead. Every day
produced fresh objects of pity and of mourning, and the
noise of the bloody passing-bell was continually heard,
which by the martyrdom of this man's cousin, and the
other's brother or friend, rang dismal peals in the hearts of
the survivors."^
Whole families left their dwellings to shelter themselves
in the woods, and, goaded by their misery, pillaged and
plundered. The priests had been active as informers, and
these Wild-Beggars, as they were called, " made excursions
on them, serving themselves of the darkest nights for
revenge and robbery, punishing them not only by despoiling
them of their goods, but by disfiguring their faces, cutting
off ears and noses." The country was in a state of
anarchy.
Margaret, Duchess of Parma, the nominal Regent of
the Netherlands, had found her position intolerable since
the arrival of the Duke of Alva, and was permitted by
Philip to resign (Oct. 6th, 1567). Alva henceforth
^ Brandt, History of the Reformation, etc. i. 261, 266. The executions
were latterly accompanied by additional atrocious cruelty. ** It being
perceived with what constancy and alacrity many persons went to the fire,
and how they opened their mouths to malce a free confession of their faith,
and that the wooden balls or gags were wont to slip out, a dreadful machine
was invented to hinder it for the future : they prepared two little irons^
between which the tongue was screwed, which being seared at the tip with
a glowing iron, would swell to such a degree as to become immovable and
incapable of being drawn back ; thus fastened, the tongue would wriggle
about with the pain of burning, and yield a hollow sound " (i. 275).
17**
258 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
was untrammelled by even nominal restraint. A process
was begun against the Counts Egniont and Hoorn, and
William of Orange was proclaimed an outlaw (Jan. 24tli,
1568) unless he submitted himself for trial before the
Council of TtiinuUs. Some days afterwards, his eldest son,
a boy of fifteen and a student in the University of Louvain,
was kidnapped and carried off to Spain.^
William replied in his famous Justification of the Prince
of Orange against his Cahwuiiators, in which he declared
that he, a citizen of Brabant, a Knight of the Golden
Fleece, a Prince of the Holy Koman Empire, one of the
sovereign Princes of Europe (in virtue of the principality
of Orange), could not be summoned before an incompetent
tribunal. He reviewed the events in the Netherlands
since the accession of Philip ii., and spoke plainly against
the misgovernment caused, he said diplomatically, by the
evil counsels of the King's advisers. The Justification
was published in several languages, and was not merely an
act of defiance to Philip, but a plea made on behalf of
his country to the whole of civilised Europe.
The earlier months of 1568 had been spent by the
Prince of Orange in military preparations for the relief of
his countrymen, and in the spring his army was ready.
The campaign was a failure. Hoogstraten was defeated.
Louis of Nassau had a temporary success at Heiliger-
Lee (May 23rd, 1568), only to be routed at Jemmingen
(July 21st, 1568). After William had issued a pathetic
but unavailing manifesto to Protestant Europe, a second
expedition was sent forth only to meet defeat. The
cause of the Netherlands seemed hopeless.
But Alva was beginning to find himself in difficulties.
On the news of the repulse of his troops at Heiliger-Lee
he had hastily beheaded the Counts Egmont and Hoorn.
Instead of striking terror into the hearts of the Nether-
landers, the execution roused them to an undying hatred
of the Spaniard. He was now troubled by lack of money
to pay his troops. He had promised Philip to make gold
^ Gachard, Corrcspondance de Guillaumc U TacUurne, iii. 17.
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 259
flow from the Low Countries to Spain ; but his rule had
destroyed the commerce and manufactures of the country,
the source of its wealth. He was almost dependent on
subsidies from Spain. Elizabeth of England had been
assisting her fellow Protestants in the way she liked best,
by seizing Spanish treasure ships ; and Alva was reduced
to find the money he needed within the Netherlands.
It was then that he proposed to the States General,
summoned to meet him (March 20th, 1569), his notorious
scheme of taxation, which finally ruined him — a tax of one
per cent, (the " hundredth penny ") to be levied once for all
on all property ; a tax of five per cent, (the " twentietli
penny) to be levied at every sale or transfer of landed
property : and a tax of ten per cent, (the " tenth penny ")
on ' all articles of commerce each time they were sold.
This scheme of taxation would have completely ruined a
commercial and manufacturing country. It met with uni-
versal resistance. Provinces, towns, magistrates, guilds, the
bishops and the clergy — everyone protested against the
taxation. Even Philip's Council at Madrid saw the im-
possibility of exacting such taxes from a country. Alva
swore that he would have his own way. The town and
district of Utrecht had been the first to protest. Alva
quartered the regiment of Lombardy upon them ; but not
even the licence and brutality of the soldiers could force
the wretched people to pay. Alva proclaimed the whole
of the inhabitants to be guilty of high treason; he took
from them all their charters and privileges ; he declared
their whole property confiscated to the King. But
these were the acts of a furious madman, and were unavail-
ing. He then postponed the collection of the hundredth
and of the tenth pennies ; but the need of money forced
him on, and he gave definite orders for the collection of the
" tenth ** and the " twentieth pennies." The trade and
manufactures of the country came to a sudden standstill,
and Alva at last knew that he was beaten. He had to be
satisfied with a payment of two millions of florins for two
years.
260 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
The real fighting force among the Eeformed Nether-
landers was to be found, not among the landsmen, but
in the sailors and fishermen. It is said that Admiral
Coligny was the first to point this out to the Prince of
Orange. He acted upon the advice, and in 1569 he had
given letters of marque to some eighteen small vessels to
cruise in the narrow seas and attack the Spaniards. At
first they were little better than pirates, — men of various
nationalities united by a fierce hatred of Spaniards and
Papists, feared by friends and foes alike. William at-
tempted, at first somewhat unsuccessfully, to reduce them
to discipline and order, by issuing with his letters of
marque orders limiting their indiscriminate pillage, insist-
ing upon the maintenance of religious services on board,
and declaring that one-third of the booty was to be given
to himself for the common good of the country. In their
earlier days they were allowed to refit and sell their plunder
in English ports, but these were closed to them on strong
remonstrances from the Court of Spain. It was almost by
accident that they seized and held (April 1st, 1572)
Brill or Brielle, a strongly fortified town on Voorn,
which was then an island at the mouth of the Maas, some
twenty miles west or seaward from Eotterdam. The in-
habitants were forced to take an oath of allegiance to
William as Stadtholder under the King, and the flag of
what was afterwards to become the United Provinces was
hoisted on land for the first time. It was not William,
but his brother Louis of Nassau, who was the first to see
the future possibilities in this act. He urged the seizure
of Flushing or Vlissingen, the chief stronghold in Zeeland,
situated, on an island at the mouth of the Honte or western
Scheldt, and commanding the entrance to Antwerp. The
citizens rose in revolt against the Spanish garrison ; the
Sea-Beggars, as they were called, hurried to assist them ;
the town was taken, and the Spanish commander, Pachecho,
was captured and hanged. This gave the seamen possession
of the whole island of Walchereu save the fortified town of
IMidflleburg. Dclfshaven and Schiedam were seized. The
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 261
news swept through Holland, Zeeland, Guelderland, Utrecht,
and Friesland, and town after town declared for William of
Orange the Stadtholder. The leaders were marvellously
encouraged to renewed exertions.^ Proclamations in the
name of the new ruler were scattered broadcast through the
country, and the people were lired by a song said to be
written by Sainte Aldegonde, Wilhelmus van Nassouwen,
which is still the national hymn of Holland. The Prince
of Orange thought he might venture on another invasion, and
was already near Brussels when the news of the Massacre
of Saint Bartholomew reached him. His plans had been based
on assistance from France, urged by Coligny and promised
by Charles ix. " What a sledge-hammer blow {coup de
masstie) that has been," he wrote to his brother ; " my only
hope was from France." Mons, which Louis had seized in
the south with his French troops, had to be abandoned ; and
William, after some vain efforts, had to disband his troops.
Then Alva came out from Brussels to wreak a fearful
vengeance on Mons, Mechlin, Tergoes, Naarden, Haarlem,
and Zutphen. The terms of the capitulation of Mons were
violated. Mechlin was i)lundered and set on fire by the
Spanish troops. The Spanish commander sent against
Zutphen had orders to burn every house, and to slay men,
women, and children. Haarlem was invested, resisted
desperately, and then capitulated on' promise of lenient
treatment. When the Spaniards entered they ' butchered
in cold blood all the Dutch soldiers and some hundreds of
the citizens ; and, tying the bodies t\Vo and two together,
they cast them into the Haarlem lake. It seemed as if the
Papists had determined to exterminate the Protestants
when they found that they could not convert them.
Some towns, however, held out. Don Frederick, the
son of Alva and the butcher of . Haarlem, was beaten back
from the little town of Alkmaar. The Sea-Beggars met the
Spanish fleet sent to crush them, sank or scattered the
^ Cf. AVilliam's letters, Correspondance, etc. iii. 47-73.
- Groen van Prinsteter, Archives ou Correspondance inidite de la Orange-
Nassau (Utrecht, 1841-61).
k
262 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
ships, and took the Adnnral prisoner. The nation of fisher-
men and shopkeepers, once the scorn of Spain and of
Europe for their patient endurance of indignities, were
seen at last to be a race of heroes, determined never again
to endure the yoke of the Spaniard. Alva had soon to
face a soldiery mutinous for want of pay, and to see all
his sea approaches in the hands of Dutch sailors, whom
the strongest fleets of Spain could not subdue. The iron
pitiless man at last acknowledged that he was beaten, and
demanded his recall. He left Brussels on Dec. 18th, 1573,
and did not again see the land he had deluged with blood
during a space of six years. Like all tyrants, he had
great faith in his system, even when it had broken in his
hand. Had he been a little more severe, added a few more
drops to the sea of blood he had spilled, all would have
gone well. The only advice he could give to his successor
was, to burn down every town he could not garrison with
Spanish troops.
The new Spanish Eegent was Don Louis Eequesens-y-
Zuniga, a member of the higher nobility of Spain, and a
Grand Commander of the Knights of Malta. He was
high-minded, and of a generous disposition. Had he been
sent to the Netherlands ten years sooner, and allowed to
act with a free hand, the history of the Netherlands might
have been different. His earlier efforts at government
were marked by attempts to negotiate, and he was at
pains to give Philip his reasons for his conduct.
" Before my arrival," he wrote, " I could not comprehend
how the rebels contrived to maintain fleets so considerable,
while your Majesty could not maintain one. Now I see
that men who are fighting for their lives, their families,
their property, and their false religion, in short, for their own
cause, are content if they receive only rations without pay."
He immediately reversed the policy of Alva : he re-
pealed the hated taxes ; dissolved the Council of Blood,
and published a general amnesty. But he could not come
to terms with tiie *' rebels." William of Orange refused
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 26 C
all negotiation which was not based on three preliminary
conditions — freedom of conscience, and liberty to preach
the Gospel according to the Word of God ; the restoration ^
of all the ancient charters; and the withdrawal of all ^M
Spaniards from all posts military and civil. He would ^H
accept no truce nor amnesty without these. " We have
heard too often," he said, " the words Agreed and Sternal.
If I have your word for it, who will guarantee that the King
will not deny it, and be absolved for his breach of faith by
the Pope ? " Eequesens, hating the necessity, had to carry
on the struggle which the policy of his King and of the
Eegents who preceded him had provoked.
The fortune of war seemed to be unchanged. The
patriots were always victorious at sea and tenacious in
desperate defence of their fortified towns when they were
besieged, but they went down before the veteran Spanish
infantry in almost every battle fought on land. In the
beo^innino- of 1574 two fortresses were invested. The
patriots were besieging Middleburg, and the Spaniards
had invested Leyden. The Sea-Beggars routed the Spanish
fleet in a bloody fight in the mouth of the Scheldt, and
Middleburg had to surrender. Leyden had two months'
respite owing to a mutiny among the Spanish soldiers, but
the citizens neglected the opportunity thus given them
to revictual their town. It was again invested (May
26th), and hardly pressed. Louis of Nassau, leading an
army to its assistance, was totally routed at Mookerheide,
and he and his younger brother Henry were among the
slain. The fate of Leyden seemed to be .sealed, when
William sucmested to the Estates of Holland to cut the
dykes and let in the sea. The plan was adopted. But
!Ee dykes took long to cut, and when they were opened
and the water began to flow . in slowly, violent winds
swept it back to the sea. Within Leyden the supply of
food was melting away; and the famished and anxious
l)urghers, looking over the plain from the steeples of the
town, saw- help coming so slowly that it seemed as if it
could arrive onlv when it was loo late. The Spaniards
264 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
knew also of the coming danger, and, calculating on the
extremities of the townsfolk, urged on them to surrender,
with promises of an honourable capitulation. " We have
two arms," one of the defenders on the walls shouted back,
" and when hunger forces us we will eat the one and fight
you with the other." Four weary months passed amidst
indescribable sufferings, when at last the sea reached the
walls. With it came the patriotic fleet, sailing over buried
corn fields and gardens, piloted through orchards and
villages. The Spaniards fled in terror, for the Sea-Beggars
were upon them, shouting their battle-cry, " Sooner Turks
than Papists." Townsmen and sailors went to the great
church to offer thanksgiving for the deliverance which had
been brought them from the sea. When the vast audience
was singing a psalm of deliverance, the voices suddenly
ceased, and nothing was heard but low sobbing ; the
people, broken by long watching and famine, overcome by
unexpected deliverance, could only weep.
The good news was brought to Delft by Hans Brugge,
who found AVilliam in church at the afternoon service.
When the sermon was ended, the deliverance of Leyden
was announced from the pulpit. AVilliam, weak with
illness as he was, rode off to Leyden at once to congratu-
late the citizens on their heroic defence and miraculous
deliverance. There he proposed the foundation of what
became the famous University of Leyden, which became
for Holland what Wittenberg had been to Germany,
Geneva to Switzerland, and Saumur to France.
The siege of Leyden was the turning-point in the war
for independence. The Spanish Eegent saw that a new
Protestant State was slowly and almost imperceptibly
forming. His troops were almost uniformly victorious
in the field, but the victories did not seem to be of much
value. He decided once more to attempt negotiation.
The conferences came to nothing. The utmost that Philip
II. would concede was that the Protestants should have
time to sell their possessions and leave the country.
The war was again renewed, when death came to relieve
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 265
Eequesens of his difficulties (March 1575). His last
months were disgraced by the recommendation he made
to his master to offer a reward for the assassination of the
Prince of Orange.
The history of the next few years is a tangled story
which would take too long to tell. When Eeq^uesens died
the treasury was empty, and no puljlic money was forth-
coming. The Spanish soldiers mutinied, clamouring for
their pay. They seized on some towns and laid hold on
the citadel of Antwerp. Then occurred the awful pillage
of the great city, when, during three terrible November
days, populous and wealthy Antwerp suffered all the
horrors that could be inflicted upon it.
The sudden death of Eequesens had left everything in
confusion ; and leading men, both Eoman Catholic and
Protestant, conceived that advantage should be taken of
the absence of any Spanish Governor to see whether all
the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands could not com-
bine on some common programme which would unite the
country in spite of their religious differences. Delegates
met together at Ghent (Oct. 28th, 1576) and drafted a
treaty. A meeting of States General for the southern
provinces was called to assemble at Brussels in November,
and the members were discussing the terms of the treaty
when the news of the " Spanish Fury " at Antwerp
reached them. The story of tlie ghastly horrors perpetrated
on their countrymen doubtless hastened their decision,
and the treaty was ratified both by the States General
and by the Council of State. The Pcwification of Ghent
cemented an alliance between the southern provinces
represented in the States General which met at Brussels
and the northern provinces of Holland and Zeeland. Its
chief provisions were that all should combine to drive the
Spanish and other foreign . troops out of the land, and that
a formal meetinof of delesrates from all the seventeen
provinces should be called to deliberate upon the religious
question. In the meantime the Eoman Catholic religion
was to be maintained ; the Placirds were to be abolislied ;
266 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
the Prince of Orange was declared to be the Governor of
the seventeen provinces and the Admiral-General of
Holland and Zeeland ; and the confiscation of the
properties of the houses of Nassau and Brederode was
rescinded.
Don John of Austria had been appointed by Philip
Eegent of the Netherlands, and was in Luxemburg early
in November. His arrival there was intimated to the
States General, who refused to acknowledge him as Eegent
unjess he would approve of the Pacification of Ghent and
swear to maintain the ancient privileges of the various
provinces. Months were spent in negotiations, but the
States General were unmovable. He yielded at length,
and made his State entry into Brussels on May 1st, 1577.
When once there he found himself overshadowed by
William, who had been accepted as leader by Eoman
Catholics and Protestants alike. But Philip with great
exertions had got together an army of twenty thousand
veteran Spanish and Italian troops, and sent them to the
Netherlands under the command of Alexander Parnese,
the son of the former Eegent, Margaret Duchess of Parma.
The young Duke of Parma was a man of consummate
abilities, military and diplomatic, and was by far the
ablest agent Philip ever had in the Low Countries. He
defeated the patriotic army at Gemblours (Jan. 31st, 1578),
and several towns at once opened their gates to Parma
and Don John. To increase the confusion, John Casimir,
brother of the Elector Palatine, invaded the land from
the east at the head of a large body of German mercenary
soldiers to assist the Calvinists ; the Archduke Matthias,
brother of the Emperor Eudolph, was already in the country,
invited by the Eoman Catholics ; and the Duke of Anjou
had invaded the Netherlands from the south to u}>hold
the interests of those Eomanists who did not wish to
tolerate Protestantism but hated the Spaniards. These
foreigners represented only too well the latent divisions
of the country — divisions which were skilfully taken
advantage of by the Duke of Parma. After struggHng
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 267
in vain for a union of the whole seventeen provinces on
the basis of complete religious toleration, William saw-
that his task was hopeless. Neither the majority of the
Homanists nor the majority of the Protestants could
understand toleration. Delegates of the Eomanist provinces
of Hainault, Douay, and Artois met at Arras (Jan. 5th,
1579) to form a league which had for its ultimate in-
tention a reconciliation with Spain on the basis of the
Pacification of Ghent, laying stress on the provision for
the maintenance of the Eoman Catholic religion. Thus
challenged, the northern provinces of Holland, Zeeland,
Utrecht, Guelderland, and Zutphen met at Utrecht (Jan.
29th, 1579), and formed a league to maintain themselves
against all foreign Princes, including the King of Spain.
These two leagues mark the definite separation of the
Eomanist South from the Protestant North, and the
creation of a new Protestant State, the United Province ^s.
William did not sign the Treaty of Utrecht until May 3rd.
In 1581, Philip made a last attempt to overcome his
indomitable antagonist. He published the Ban against
him, denouncing him as a traitor and an enemy of the
human race, and offering a reward of twenty-five thousand
crowns and a patent of nobility to anyone who should
deliver him to the King dead or alive. William answered
in his famous Apology, which gives an account of his whole
career, and contains a scathing exposure of Philip's
misdeeds. The Apology was translated into several
languages, and sent to all the Courts of Europe. Brabant,
Flanders, Utrecht, Guelderland, Holland, and Zeeland
answered Philip by the celebrated Act of Abjuiation
(July 26th, 1581), in which they solemnly renounced
allegiance to the King of Spain, and constituted themselves
an independent republic.
The date of the abjuration may be taken as the
beginning of the new era, the birth qf another Protestant
nation. Its young life had been consecrated in a baptism
of blood and fire such as no other nation in Europe had to
endure. Its Declaration of Independence did not procure
268 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
immediate relief. Nearly thirty years of further struggle
awaited it ; and it was soon to mourn the loss of its heroic
leader. The rewards promised by Philip ii. were a spur to
the zeal of Eomanist fanatics. In 1582 (March 18th),
Juan Jaureguy, a Biscayan, made a desperate attempt at
assassination, which for the moment was thought to be
successful. The pistol was so close to the Prince that his
hair and beard were set on fire, and the ball entering under
the right ear, passed through the palate and out by the
left jaw. Two years later (July 9th, 1584), WilHam fell
mortally wounded by Balthasar Gerard, whose heirs
claimed the reward for assassination promised by Philip,
and received part of it from the King. The Prince's last
words were : " My God, have mercy on my soul and on
these poor people."
The sixteenth century produced no nobler character
than that of William, Prince of Orange. His family were
Lutherans, but they permitted the lad to be brought up
in the Eoman Catholic religion — the condition which
Charles v. had imposed before he would consent to give
effect to the will of Eene, Prince of Orange,^ who, dying
at the early age of twenty-six, had left his large possessions
to his youthful cousin, William of Nassau. In an intoler-
ant age he stands forth as the one great leader who rose
above the religious passions of the time, and who strove
all his life to secure freedom of conscience and right of
public worship for men of all creeds.^ He was a con-
sistent liberal Eoman Catholic down to the close of 1555.
His letter (January 24th, 1566) to Margaret of Parma
^ The small principality of Orange-Chalons was situated in the south of
France on the river Rhone, its south-west corner being about ton miles
north of the city of Avignon. Henry of Nassau, the uncle of our William
of Orange, had married Claude, the sister of Philibei't, the last male oftlie
House of Orange-Chalons ; and Philibert had bequeathed his principality
to his nephew Rene, the son of Henry and Claude. The principality was
of no great value compared with the other possessions of the House of
Nassau, but as it was under no overlord, its i)ossessor took rank among the
sovereign princes of Europe.
^ Putnam, Williatn the Silent, the Prince of Orange, the moderate man
of the Sixteenth Century, 2 vols., New York, 1895.
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 269
perhaps reveals the beginnings of a change. He called
himself " a good Christian," not a " good Catholic." Before
the end of that year he had said privately that he was
ready to return to the faith of his childhood and subscribe
the Augsburg Confession. During his exile in 1568 he
had made a daily study of the Holy Scriptures, and, what-
ever the exact shade of his theological opinions, had become
a deeply religious man, animated with the lofty idea that
God had called him to do a great work for Him and for
His persecuted people. His private letters, meant for no
eyes but those of his wife or of his most familiar friends,
are full of passages expressing a quiet faith in God and in
the leadings of His Providence.^ During the last years of
his life the teachings of Calvin had more and more taken
hold on his intellect and sympathy, and he publicly declared
himself a Calvinist in 1573 (October 23rd). A hatred of
every form of oppression was his ruling passion, and he him-
self has told us that it was when he learnt that the Kings
of France and Spain had come to a secret understanding
to extirpate heresy by fire and sword, that he made the
silent resolve to drive " This vermin of Spaniards out of
his country." ^
The Protestant Netherlands might well believe them-
selves lost when he fell under the pistol of the assassin ;
but he left them a legacy in the persons of his confidential
friend Johan van Oldenbarne veldt and of his son Maurice.
Oldenbarneveldt's patient diplomatic genius completed the
political work left unfinished by William ; and Maurice,^
1 Gachard, Correspmidance de Ghiillaume le Tacitume, Prince d' Orange,
ii. 110.
- It is said that William's reticence on hearing this news, which moved
him so much, gained him the name of "The Silent " {le tacitume) : it is more
probable that the soubriquet was given to him by Cardinal de Granvelle.
'^ Maurice succeeded his father as Stadtholder, and became Prince of
Orange in 1618 on the death of his elder brother, Philip William, who was
kidnapped from Louvain and brought up as a Roman Catholic by Philip
II. William was married four times :
a. In 1550, to Anne of Egmont, only child of Maximilian of Buren.
Her son was Philip William ; she died in March 1558.
h. In 1561, to Anne, daughter of the Elector Maurice of Saxony, and
4?^
270 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
a lad of seventeen at his father's death, was acknowledged
only a few years afterwards as the greatest military
leader in Europe. The older man in the politician's study,
and the boy-general in the field, were able to keep the
Spaniards at bay, until at length, in 1607 (October), a
suspension of arms was agreed to. This resulted in a
truce for twelve years (April 9th, 1609), which was after-
wards prolonged indefinitely. The Dutch had won their
independence, and had become a strong Protestant power
whose supremacy at sea was challenged only by England.
Notwithstanding the severity of the persecutions which
they endured, the Protestants of the Netherlands organised
themselves into churches, and as early as 1563 the dele-
gates from the various churches met in a synod to settle the
doctrine and discipline which was to bind them together.
This was not done without internal difficulties. The
people of the Netherlands had received the Evangelical
faith from various sources, and the converts tenaciously
clung to the creed and ecclesiastical system with which they
were first acquainted. The earliest Eeformation preachers
in the Low Countries were followers of Luther, and many
of them had been trained at Wittenberg. Lutherans
were numerous among the lesser nobility and the more
substantial burghers. Somewhat later the opinions of
Zwingli also found their way into the Netherlands, and
were adopted by many very sincere believers. The French-
granddaughter of Philip of Hesse. She early developed symptoms of
incipient insanity, which came to a height when she deserted her husband
in 1567 and went to live a disreputable life in Cologne, She became insane,
and her family seized her and imprisoned her until she died in 1573. She
was the mother of Maurice.
c. In 1571, Charlotte de Bourbon, daughter of the Due de Montpensier.
She had been a nun, had embraced the Reformed faith, and fled to Germany.
The marriage was a singularly happy one. She was scarcely recovered from
childbirth when William was almost killed by Jaureguy, and the shock,
combined with her incessant toil in nursing her husband, was too much
for her strength ; she died in 1582 (May 5th).
d. In 1583, to Louise de Coligny, daughter of the celebrated Admiral
Coligny. She had lost both her parents in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew.
She was a wonderful and charming woman, beloved by her stepchildren
and adored by her adopted country ; vshe survived her husband forty years.
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 271
speaking provinces in the south had been evangelised for
the most part by missioners trained under Calvin at
Geneva, and they brought his theology with them. Thus
Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin had all attached followers in
the Low Countries. The differences found expression, not
so much in matters of doctrine as in preferences for
different forms of Church government ; and although they
were almost overcome, they reappeared later in the contest
which emerged in the beginning of the seventeenth century
about the relation which ought to subsist between the civil
and the ecclesiastical authorities. In the end, the teaching
of Geneva displaced both Lutheranism and Zwinglianism,
and the Eeformed in the Netherlands became Calvinist in
doctrine and discipline.
' Accordingly, most of the churches were early organised
on the principles of the churches in France, with a minister
and a consistory of elders and deacons ; and when delegates
from the churches met to deliberate upon an organisation
which would bind all together, the system which was
adopted was the Presbyterian or Conciliar. The meeting
was at Emden (1569), as it was too dangerous to assemble
within the jurisdiction of the Government of the Nether-
lands. It was resolved that the Church should be ruled
by consistories, classes, and synods. This Conciliar organisation,
thus adopted at Emden in 1569, might not have met with
unanimous support had not the Reformed been exposed to
the full fury of Alva's persecution. The consistorial
system of the Lutheran Church, and the position which
Zwingli assigned to the magistracy, are possible only when
the civil government is favourably disposed towards the
Church within the land which it rules ; but Presbyterianism,
as France, Scotland, and the Netherlands have proved,
is the best suited for " a Church under the Cross." Nor
need this be wondered at, for the Presbyterian or Conciliar
is the revival of the government of th^ Church of the early
centuries while still under the ban of the Roman Empire.^
^ Lindsay, The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries, 2nd ed.
(Loudon, 1903), pp- 198, 204/., 259, 330 n., 339.
272 THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS
A synod which met at Dordrecht (Dort) in 1572
revised, enlarged, and formally adopted the articles of this
Emden synod or conference.
Two pecularities of the Dutch organisation ought to
be explained. The consistory or kirk-session is the court
which rules the individual congregation in Holland as in
all other Presbyterian lands ; but in the Dutch Church all
Church members inhabiting a city are regarded as one
congregation ; the ministers are the pastors of the city,
preaching in turn in all its buildings set apart for public
worship, and the people are not considered to be specially
attached to any one of the buildings, nor to belong to the
flock of any one of the ministers ; and therefore there
is one consistory for the whole city. This peculiarity was
also seen in the early centuries. Then it must be noticed
that, owing to the political organisation of the United
Provinces, it was difficult to arrange for a National Synod.
The civil constitution was a federation of States, in many
respects independent of each other, who were bound to
protect each other in war, to maintain a common army,
and to contribute to a common military treasury. When
William of Orange was elected Stadtholder for life, one of
the laws which bound him was that he should not acknow-
ledge any ecclesiastical assembly which had not the
approval of the civil authorities of the province in which
it proposed to meet.' This implied that each province
was entitled to regulate its own ecclesiastical affairs.
There could be no meeting of a National Synod unless all
the United Provinces gave their approval. Hence the
tendency was to prevent corporate and united action.
According to the articles of Emden, and the revised
and enlarged edition approved at Dordrecht in 1572, it
was agreed that office-bearers in the Church were to sign
the Confession of Faith. This creed had been prepared
by Guido de Bres (born at Mons in 1540) in 1561, and
had been revised by several of his friends. It was
based on the Confession of the French Church, and was
originally written in French. It was approved by a series
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 273
of Synods, and was translated into Dutch, German, and
Latin. It is known as the Belgic Confession. Its original
title was, A Confession of Faith, generally and unanimously
maintained hy Believers dispersed throughout the Loio
Countries who desire to live according to the purity of the
Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ} The Church also
adopted the Heidelberg Catechism^ for the instruction of
the young.
The long figlit against Spain and the Inquisition had
stimulated the energies of the Church and the people of
the Netherlands, and their Universities and theological
schools soon rivalled older seats of learning. The
University of Leyden, a thank-offering for the wonderful
deliverance of the town, was founded in 1575 ; Franecker,
ten. years later, in 1585 ; and there followed in rapid
succession the Universities of Gronningen (1612), Utrecht
(1636), and Harderwyk (1648). Dutch theologians and
lawyers became famous during the seventeenth century
for their learning and acumen.
^ Miiller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche (Leipzig,
1903), p. 233 ; Schaff, The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches,
383.
2 iJifi. p. 682.
i8**
CHAPTEK VI.
THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND.*
If civilisation means the art of living together in peace,
Scotland was almost four hundred years behind the rest of
Western Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
^ Sources : — Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary
Queen of Scots, 1547-1603 {¥.&\nhnvg\\, 1898, etc.) ; Calendar of State Papers,
Elizaheth, Foreign (London, 1863, etc.) ; Acts of the Parliament of Scotland,
ii. (1814) ; Register of the Great Seal of Scotland (Edinburgli, 1886) ;
Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, i. (Edinburgh, 1877) ; Labanoff,
Lettres inddites de Marie Stuart (Paris, 1839), and Lettres, instructions
ct memoires de Marie Stuart (London, 1844) ; Pollen, Papal Negotiations
with Mary Queen of Scots (Scottish Historical Society, Edinburgh, 1901);
Teulet, Pawners d'etat . . . relatifs a Vhistoire de I'^cosse (Bannatyne Club,
1851), and Relations politiques de la France et de VEspagne avec I'Ecosse
(Paris, 1862) ; Lesley, History of Scotland {^Qotiish. Text Society, Edinburgh,
1888) ; John Knox, Works (edited by D. Laing, Edinburgh, 1846-55) ;
The Book of the Universal Kirk (Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1839) ; Gude
and Godlie Ballatis (edited by Mitchell for Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh,
1897) ; (Dunlop), A Collection of Confessions of Faith, etc. ii. (Edinburgh,
1722) ; Caldenvood, History of the Kirk of Scotland ("Woodrow Society,
Edinburgh, 1842-49) ; Row, History of the Kirk of Scotland (Woodrow
Society, Edinburgh, 1842) ; Spottiswoode, History of the Church and State
of Scotland (Spottiswoode Society, Edinburgh, 1851) ; Scott, Fasti Eccles^m
Scoticanoi (Edinburgh, 1866-71) ; Sir David Lindsay, Poetical Works
(edited by David Laing, Edinburgh, 1879) ; The Book of Common Order of
the Church of Scotland (edited by Sprott and Leisliman, Edinburgh, 1868) ;
Rotidi Scotice ; Calvin's Letters {Corpus Reformatorum, xxxviii.-xlviii.).
Later Books : D. Hay Fleming, Mary Queen of Scots from her birth until
her flight into England (Lowdou, 1897), The Scottish Reformation (Edrnhnrgh,
1904), and The Story of the Scottish Covenants (Edinburgh, 1904) ; P. Hume
Brown, John Knox (London, 1895), and George Buchanan (Edinburgh, 1890) ;
M'Crie, Life of Knox (Edinburgh, 1840) ; Grub, Ecclesiastical History of
Scotland [Edmhrn-gh, 1861); Cunningham, The Church History of Scotland
(Edinburgh, 1882) ; Lorimer, Life of Patrick Hamilton {Edinhmgh, 1857),
John Knox and the Church of England (London, 1875).
274
PREPARATION FOR THE REFORMATION 275
The history of her kiogs is a tale of assassinations, long
minorities, regencies scrambled and fought for by un-
scrupulous barons ; and kingly authority, which had been
growing in other countries, was on the verge of extinction
in Scotland. Her Parliament or Estates of the Eealm
was a mere feudal assembly, with more than the usual
uncertainty regarding who were entitled to .be present ;
while its peculiar management by a Committee of the
Estates made it a facile instrument in the hands of the
faction who were for the moment in power, and robbed it
of any stable influence on the country as a whole. The
Church, wealthy so far as acreage was concerned, had
become secularised to an extent unknown elsewhere, and
its benefices served to provide for the younger sons of the
great feudal families in a manner which recalls the days
of Charles the Hammer.^
Yet the country had been prepared for the Eeforma-
tion by the education of the people, especially of the middle
class, by constant intercourse between Scotland and France
and the Low Countries, and by the sympathy which Scottish
students had felt for the earlier movements towards
Church reform in England and Bohemia ; while the
wealth and immorality of the Komish clergy, the poverty
of the nobility and landed gentry, and the changing
political situation, combined to give an impetus to the
efforts of those who longed for a Eeformation.
More than one historian has remarked that the state
of education in Scotland had always been considerably in
advance of what might have been expected from its
backward civilisation. This has been usually traced to
the enduring influence of the old Celtic Church- — a Church
which had maintained its hold on the country for more
than seven centuries, and which had always looked upon
the education of the people as a religious duty. Old
Celtic ecclesiastical rules declared that it was as important
to teach boys and girls to read, as to dispense the sacraments,
and to take part in soul-friendship (confession). The
*Cf. Cambridge Modern History (Cambridge, 1903), ii. 651-58.
276 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
Celtic monastery had always been an educational centre ;
and when Charles the Great established the High Schools
which grew to be the older Universities of northern
Europe, the Celtic monasteries furnished many of the
teachers. The very complete educational system of the
old Church had been taken over into the Eoman Church
which supplanted it, under Queen Margaret and her sons.
Hence it was that the Cathedral and Monastery Schools
produced a number of scholars who were eager to enrich
their stores of learning beyond what the mother-country
could give them, and the Scotch wandering student was
well known during the Middle Ages on the Continent of
Europe. One Scottish bishop founded a Scots College
in Paris for his countrymen ; other bishops obtained from
English kings safe-conducts for their students to reside
at Oxford and Cambridge.
This scholastic intercourse brought Scotland in touch
with the intellectual movements in Europe. Scottish
students at Paris listened to the lectures of Peter Dubois
and WilHam of Ockham when they taught the theories
contained in the Defensor Pacis of Marsiglio of Padua,
who had expounded tliii t the Church is not the hierarchy,
but the Christian people, and had denied both the
temporal and spiritual supremacy of the Pope. The
Rotidi Scotim^ or collection of safe-conducts issued by
English monarchs to inhabitants of the northern kingdom,
show that a continuous stream of Scottish students went
to the English Universities from 1357 to 1389. During
the earlier years of this period — that is, up to 1364 —
the safe-conducts applied for and granted entitled tlie
bearers to go to Oxford or Cambridge or any other place
of learning in England; but from 1364 to 1379 Oxford
seems to have been the only University frequented.
During one of these years (1365) safe-conducts were
given to no fewer than eighty-one Scottish students to
study in Oxford. The period was that during which
^ Rotuli Scotice, i. 808, 815, 816, 822, 825, 828, 829, 849, 851, 859, 877,
881, 886, 891, 896, ii. 8, 20, 45, 100.
LOLLARDY IN SCOTLAND 277
the influence of Wiclif was most powerful, when Oxford
seethed with Lollardy ; and the teachings of the great
Eeformer were thus brought into Scotland.
Lollardy seems to have made great progress. In
1405, Eobert, Duke of Albany, was made Governor of
Scotland, and Andrew Wyntoun in his Metrical Chronicle
praises him for his fidelity to the Church :
"He wes a constant Catholike,
All Lollard he liatyt and heretike.''^
From this time down to the very dawn of the Reforma-
tion we find references to Lollardy in contemporary
writers and in Acts of the Scots Parliament; and all the
earlier histories of the Eeformation movement in Scotland
relate the story of the Lollards of Kyle and their inter-
view with King James iv.^
The presence of Lollard opinions in Scotland must
have attracted the attention of the leaders of the Hussites
in Bohemia. In 1433 (July 23rd), Paul Craw or Crawar
was seized, tried before the Inquisitorial court, condemned,
and burnt as a heretic. He had brought letters from the
Hussites of Prag, and acknowledged that he had been sent
to, interest the Scots in the Hussite movement — one of
the many emissaries who were despatched in 1431 and
1432 by Procopius and John Rokycana into all European
lands. He was found by the Inquisitor to be a man in
sacris Uteris et in allegatione BiUice promptus et exercitatiis.
Knox tells us that he was condemned for denying
transubstantiation, auricular confession to the priests, and
prayers to saints departed. We learn also from Knox
that at his burning the executioner put a ball of brass in
his mouth that the people might not hear his defence.
His execution did not arrest the progress of Lollardy.
^ Wyntoun, Orygynalc Cronykil, ix-. c. xxvi. 2773, 2774.
^ For a collection of these i-eferences, cf. The Scottish Historical JReview
for April 1904, pp. 266 jf. Purvey's revision of.Wielif's JVcw Testament was
translated by Murdoch Nisbet into Scots. It is being published by the
Scottish Text Society, The New Testament in Scots, i. 1901, ii. 1903. The
translation was made about 1520.
J
278 THE REFORMATION IN vSCOTLAND
The earlier poems of Sir David Lindsay contain Lollard
opinions. By the time that these were published (1529—
1530), Lutheran writings had found their way into
Scotland, and may have influenced the writer ; but the
sentiments in the Testament and Complaynt of the Papyngo
are more Lollard than Lutheran.
The Eomish Church in Scotland was comparatively
wealthy, and the rude Scottish nobles managed to place
their younger sons in many a fat living, with the result
that the manners of the clergy did little honour to their
sacred calling. Satirists began to point the moral. John
Eow says :
" As for the more particulare means whereby many in
Scotland got some knowledge of God's trueth, in the time
of great darkness, there were some books sett out, such as
Sir David Lindesay his poesie upon the Four Monarchies,
wherein many other treatises are conteined, opening up
the abuses among the Clergie at that tyme ; Wedderburn's
Psahns and Godlie Ballads, changing many of the old
Popish songs unto Godlie purposes ; a Complaint given
in by the halt, blinde and poore of England, aganis the
prelats, preists, friers, and others such kirkmen, who
prodigallie wasted all the tithes and kirk liveings upon
their unlawfull pleasures, so that they could get no
sustentation nor releef as God had ordained. This was
printed and came into Scotland. There were also some
theatricall playes, comedies, and other notable histories
acted in publict; for Sir David Lindesay his Satyre was
acted in the Amphitheater of St. Johnestoun (Perth), before
King James the v., and a great part of the nobilitie and
gentrie, fra morn to even, whilk made the people sensible
of the darknes wherein they lay, of the wickednes of their
kirkmen, and did let them see how God's Kirk should have
bene otherwayes guyded nor it was ; all of whilk did much
good for that tyme." ^
It may be doubted, however, whether the Scottish people
felt the real sting in such satires until they began to be
^ Row, History of the Kirk of Scotland from the year 1558 to August 1637
(Edinbur-h, 1842), p. 6.
LUTHERAI^ WRITINGS IN SCOTLAND 279
taught by preachers who had been to Wittenberg, or who
had studied the writings of Luther and other Eeformers,
or who had learned from private perusal of the Scriptures
what it was to be in earnest about pardon of sin and
salvation of soul.
Some of the towns on the East Coast were centres of
trade with the Continent, and Leith had once been an
obscure member of the great Hanseatic League. Lutheran
and other tracts were smuggled into Scotland from Camp-
vere by way of Leith, Dundee, and Montrose. The authori-
ties were on the alert, and tried to put an end to the
practice. In 1525, Parliament forbade strangers bringing
Lutheran books into Scotland on pain of imprisonment and
forfeiture of their goods and ships ; ^ and in the same year
the Government were informed that " sundry strangers and
others within the diocese of Aberdeen were possessed of
Luther's books, and favoured his errors and false opinions."
Two years later (1527), the Act was made to include those
who assisted in spreading Lutheran views. An agent of
Wolsey informed the Cardinal that Scottish merchants
were purchasing copies of Tindale's New Testament
in the Low Countries and sending them to Scotland.^
The efforts of the Government do not seem to have been
very successful. Another Act of Parliament in 1535
declared that none but the clergy were to be allowed to
purchase heretical books ; all others possessing ^ such were
required to give them up within forty days.^ This legisla-
tion clearly shows the spread of Kefarmed writings among
the people of Scotland.
The first Scottish martyr was Patrick Hamilton, a
younger son of Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavel and
Stanehouse. He had studied at Paris and Louvain. As
he took his degree of M.A. in Paris in 1520, he had been
there when the writings of Luther were being studied by
all learned men, including the theological students of the
^ Act. Pari. Scot. ii. 295.
. 2 Hay Fleniing, The Scottish Reformation, p. 12.
^Act. Farl. Scot. ii. U\,
280 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
Sorbonne (the theological faculty).^ Hamilton must have
been impressed by the principles of the German Eeformer,
and have made no secret of his views when he returned to
Scotland; for in the beginning of 1527 he was a suspected
heretic, and was ordered to be summoned and accused as
such. He fled from Scotland, went to Wittenberg, was
at the opening of Philip of Hesse's new Evangelical Univer-
sity of Marburg (May 30th, 1527), and drafted the theses
for the first academic Disputation.^ He felt constrained,
however, to return to his native land to testify against the
corruptions of the Eoman Church, and was preaching in
Scotland in the end of autumn 1527. The success
attending his ministry excited the fears of the prelates.
He was invited, or rather enticed, to St. Andrews ; allowed
for nearly a month to preach and dispute in the University ;
and was then arrested and tried in the cathedral. The
trial took place in the forenoon, and at mid-day he was
hurried to the stake (Feb. 27th, 1528). The fire by care-
lessness rather than with intention was slow, and death
came only after lingering hours of agony.
If the ecclesiastical authorities thought to stamp out
the new faith by this martyrdom, they Were soon to discover
their mistake. Alexander Alane (Alesius), who had under-
taken to convince Patrick Hamilton of his errors, had been
himself converted. He was arrested and imprisoned, but
escaped to the Continent. The following years witnessed
a succession of martyrs — Henry Forrest (1533), David
Stratton and Norman Gourlay (1534), Duncan Simpson,
Forrester, Keillor, Beverage, Forret, Eussell, and Kennedy
^ Luther says so himself; of. letter to Lange of April 13th, 1519 ; De
Wette, Dr. Martin Luthers Briefe, Sendschreiben, etc. (Berlin, 1825-28) i.
255 ; and Herminjard, Correspondance des Reformateurs dans les pays de
langue frangaise (Geneva and Paris, 1866-97), i. 47, 48.
2 These theses were translated from the Latin into the vernacular by
John Firth, and published under the title of Patrick's Places. They are
printed in Fox's Acts and Monuments, and by Knox in his History of the
Reformation in Scotland ; The Works of John i ''nox collected and edited
hy David Laing (Edinburgh, 1846-64), i. 19/'. For Patrick Hamilton, cf.
Lorinier, Patrick Hamilton, the first Preacher ani Martyr of the Scottish
Reformation (Edinburgh, 1857).
BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 281
(1539). The celebrated George Buchanan was imprisoned,
but managed to escape.^ The Scots Parliament and Privy
Council assisted the Churchmen to extirpate the new faith
in a series of enactments which themselves bear witness to
its spread. In 1540, in a series of Acts (March 14th) it
was declared that the Virgin Mary was " to be reverently
worshipped, and prayers made to her " for the King's pro-
sperity, for peace with all Christian princes, for the triumph
of the " Faith Catholic," and that the people " may remain
in the faith and conform to the statutes of Holy Kirk."
Prayers were also ordered to be made to the saints. It
was forbidden to argue against, or impugn, the papal
authority under jjain of death and confiscation of " goods
movable and immovable." No one is to " cast down or
otherwise treat irreverently or in any ways dishonour " the
images of saints canonised by the Church. Heretics who
have seen the error of their ways are not to discuss with
others any matters touching "our holy faith." No one
suspected of heresy, even if he has recanted, is to be eligible
to hold any office, nor to be admitted to the King's Council.
All who assist heretics are threatened with severe punish-
ment. In 1543, notwithstanding all this legislation, the
Lord Governor (the Earl of Arran) had to confess that
heretics increase rapidly, and spread opinions contrary to the
Church.^ The terms of some of these enactments show
that the new faith had been making converts among the
nobility ; and they also indicate the chief points of attack
on the Koman Church in Scotland.
In 1542 (Dec. 14th), James v. died, leaving an infant
1 daughter, Mary (b. Dec. 8th), who became the Queen of
'Scots when barely a week old. Thus Scotland was again
harassed with an infant sovereign ; and there was the
usual scramble for the Kegency,. which this time involved
questions of national policy as well as personal aggran-
disement.
^Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, xiv. (p. 277 in Ruddiman's
edition).
2 Act. Pari. Scot. ii. 371, ii. 443.
282 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
It was the settled policy of the Tudor kings to detach
Scotland from the old French alliance, and secure it for
England. The marriage of Margaret Tudor to James iv.
shows what means they thought to employ, and but for
Margaret's quarrel with the Earl of Angus, her second
husband, another wedding might have bound the nations
firmly together. The French marriages of James v., first
with Madeleine, daughter of Francis I. (1537), and on her
premature death with Mary of Guise (1538), showed the
recoil of Scotland from the English alliance. James' death
gave Henry viii. an opportunity to renew his father's
schemes, and his idea was to betroth his boy Edward to the
baby Mary, and get the " little Queen " brought to England
for education. Many Scotsmen thought the proposal a good
one for their country, and perhaps more were induced to
think so by the money which Henry lavished upon them
to secure their support. They made the English party in
Scotland. The policy of English alliance as against French
alliance was complicated by the question of religion.
Whatever may be thought of the character of the English
Reformation at this date, Henry vin. had broken
thoroughly with the Papacy, and union with England would
have dragged Scotland to revolt against the mediaeval
Church. The leader of the French and Romanist party
in Scotland was David Beaton, certainly the ablest and
perhaps the most unscrupulous man there. He had been
made Archbishop of St. Andrews, coadjutor to his aged
uncle, in 1538. In the same month. Pope Paul m., who
needed a Churchman of the highest rank to publish his Bull
against Henry vill. in a place as near England as was
possible to find, had sent him a Cardinal's Hat. The
Cardinal, Beaton, stood in Scotland for France and Rome
against England and the Reformation. The struggle for
the Regency in Scotland in 1542 carried with it an inter-
national and a religious policy. The clouds heralding the
storm which was to destroy Mary, gathered round the
cradle of the baby Queen.
At first the English faction prevailed. The claims of
FRANCE & ROMANISM, ENGLAND & REFORMATION 283
the Queen Mother were scarcely considered. Beaton pro-
duced a will, said to have been fraudulently obtained from
the dying King, appointing him and several of the leading
nobles of Scotland, Governors of the kingdom. This
arrangement was soon set aside, the Earl of Arran was
appointed Governor (Jan. 3rd, 1543), and Beaton was
confined in Blackness Castle.
The Governor selected John Eough for his chaplain
and Thomas Williams for his preacher, both ardent
Eeformers. The Acts of the previous reign against heresy
were modified to the extent that men suspect of heresy
might enjoy office, and heretics were accorded more
merciful treatment. Moreover, an Act of Parliament (March
15th, 1543) permitted the possession and reading of a
good' and true translation of the Old and New Testaments.
But the masterful policy of Henry viii. and the weakness
of the Governor brought about a change. Beaton was
released from Blackness and restored to his own Castle of
St. Andrews ; the Governor dismissed his Eeformed
preachers; the Privy Council (June 2nd, 1543") forbade
on pain of death and confiscation of goods all criticism of
the mediaeval doctrine of the Sacraments, and forbade the
possession of heretical books. In September, Arran and
Beaton were reconciled ; in December, the Parliament
annulled the treaties with England consenting to a marriage
between Edward and Mary, and the ancient league with
France was renewed. This was followed by the revival of
persecution, and almost all that had been gained was lost.
Henry's ruthless devastation of the Borders did not mend
matters. The more enlightened policy of Lord Protector
Somerset could not allay the suspicions of the Scottish
nation. Their " little Queen " was sent to France to be
educated by the Guises, " to the end that in hir youth she
should drynk of that lycour, that should remane with hir
all hir lyfetyme, for a plague to this .realme, and for hir
finall destructioun." ^
^ The Works of John Knox, collected arid edited by David Laing
(Edinburgh, 1846-64), i. 218.
284 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
But if the Keformation movement was losing ground
as a national policy, it was gaining strength as a spiritual
quickening in the hearts of the people. George Wishart,
one of the Wisharts of Pittarrow, who had fled from persecu-
tion in 1538 and had wandered in England, Germany, and
Switzerland, returned to his native country about 1543,
consumed with the desire to bear witness for the Gospel.
He preached in Montrose, and Dundee during a visita-
tion of the plague, and Ayrshire. Beaton's party were
anxious to secure him, and after a preaching tour in the
Lothians he was seized in Ormiston House and handed over
to the Earl of Bothwell, who, breaking pledges he had
made, delivered him to the Cardinal ; he lodged him in the
dungeon at St. Andrews (end of Jan. 1546), and had him
tried in the cathedral, when he was condemned to the stake
(March 1st, 1546).
Wishart was Knox's forerunner, and during this tour
in the Lothians, Knox had been his constant companion.
The Eomanist party had tried to assassinate the bold
preacher, and Knox carried a two-handed sword ready
to cut down anyone who attempted to strike at the
missionary while he was speaking. All the tenderness
which lay beneath the sternness of Knox's character appears
in the account he gives of Wishart in his History. And to
Wishart, Knox was the beloved disciple. When he fore-
saw that the end was near, he refused to allow Knox to
share his danger.^
Assassination was a not infrequent way of getting rid of
a political opponent in the sixteenth century, and Beaton's
death had long been planned, not without secret promptings
from England. Three months after Wishart's martyrdom
(May 29th, 1546), Norman Lesley and Kirkcaldy of Grange
at the head of a small band of men broke into the Castle
of St. Andrews and slew the Cardinal. They held the
stronghold, and the castle became a place of refuge for men
whose lives were threatened by the Government, and who
sympathised with the English alliance. The Government
1 The Works of John Knox, etc. i. 125-45.
JOHN KNOX 285
laid siege to the place but were unable to take it, and their
troops withdrew. John Eough, who had been Arran's
Eeformed chaplain, joined the company, and began to preach
to the people of St. Andrews. Knox, who had become a
marked man, and had thought of taking refuge in Germany,
was persuaded to enter the castle, and there, sorely against
his will, he was almost forced to stand forth as a preacher
of the Word. His first sermon placed him at once in the
foremost rank of Scottish lieformers, and men began to
predict that he would share the fate of Wishart. " Master
George Wishart spak never so plainelye, and yitt he was
brunt : evin so will he be." ^
Next to nothing is known about the early history of
John Knox. He came into the world at or near
Haddington in the year 151 5, ^ but on what day or month
remains hidden. He sprang from the commons of Scotland,
and his forebears were followers of the Earls of Bothwell ;
he was a papal notary, and in priest's orders in 1540 ; he
was tutor to the sons of the lairds of Ormiston and
Longniddry in 1545; he accompanied Wishart in
December and January 1545, 1546 — these are the facts
known about him before he was called to stand forward as
a preacher of the Eeformation in Scotland. He was then
thirty-two — a silent, slow ripening man, with quite a
talent for keeping himself in the background.
Knox's work in the castle and town of St. ' Andrews
was interrupted by the arrival of a French fleet (July
1547), which battered the walls with artillery until the
j castle was compelled to surrender. He and all the
' inmates were carried over to France. They had secured
as terms of surrender that their lives should be spared ;
that they should be safely transported to France ; and that
if they could not accept the terms there offered to them
by the French King, they should be allowed to depart to
^ The Works of John Knox, etc. i. 192.
' Dr. Hay Fleming has settled the vexed question of the date of Knox's
birth in his article in the Bookman for Sept. 1905, p. 193 ; cf. Athenaeum,
Nov. 5th and Dec. 3rd, 1904.
286 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
any country they might select for their sojourn, save
Scotland. It was not the custom, however, for French
kings to keep promises made to heretics, and Knox and
his companions were made galley-slaves. For nineteen
months he had to endure this living death, which for long
drawn out torture can only be compared with what the
Christians of the earliest centuries had to suffer when they
were condemned to the mines. He had to sit chained
with four or six others to the rowing benches, which were
set at right angles to the side of the ship, without change
of posture by day, and compelled to sleep, still chained,
under the benches by night ; exposed to the elements day
and night alike ; enduring the lash of the overseer, who
paced up and down the gangway which ran between the
two lines of benches ; feeding on the insufficient meals of
coarse biscuit and porridge of oil and beans ; chained along
with the vilest malefactors. The French Papists had
invented this method of treating all who differed from them
in religious matters. It could scarcely make Knox the
more tolerant of French policy or of the French religion.
He seldom refers to this terrible experience. He dismisses
it with : '
"How long I continewed prisoneir, what torment I
susteaned in the galaies, and what war the sobbes of my
harte, is now no time to receat: This onlie I can nocht
conceall, which mo than one have hard me say, when the
body was far absent from Scotland, that my assured houp
was, in oppin audience, to preache in Sanctandrois befoir I
depairted this lyeff." ^
The prisoners were released from the galleys through
the instrumentality of the English Government in the
early months of 1549, and Knox reached England by the
7th of April. It was there that he began his real work as
a preacher of the Reformation. He spent nearly five years
as minister at Berwick, at Newcastle, and in London. He
was twice offered preferment — the vacant bishopric of
Eochester in 1552, and the vicarage of All Hallows in
^ Works of John Knox, etc. i. 349.
KNOX IN ENGLAND 287
Bread St., London, in the beginning of 1553. He refused
both, and was actually summoned before the Privy Council
to explain why he would not accept preferment.^ It is
probable that he had something to do with the production
of The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the
Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies in the Church of
England, 1552, commonly called the Second Prayer-Book
of King Edward vi. The rubric explaining kneeling at the
partaking of the Holy Supper, or at least one sentence in it,
is most probably due to his remonstrances or suggestions.-
The accession of Mary Tudor to the throne closed his
career in England ; but he stuck to his work long after his
companion preachers had abandoned it. He was in London,
and had the courage to rebuke the rejoicings of the crowd
at her entry into the capital — a fearless, outspoken man.
who could always be depended on for doing what no one
else dared.
Knox got safely across the Channel, travelled through
France by ways unknown, and reached Geneva. He
spent some time with Calvin, then went on to Zurich to
see Bullinger. He appears to have been meditating deeply
on the condition of Scotland and England, and propounded
a set of questions to these divines which show that he was
trying to formulate for himself the principles he afterwards
asserted on the rights of subjects to restrain tyrannical
sovereigns.^ The years 1554-58, with the exception of a
brief visit to Scotland in the end of 1555, were spent on
the Continent, but were important for his future work in
Scotland. They witnessed the troubles in the Frankfort
congregation of English exiles, where Knox's broad-minded
^ Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of ScotlaTid (Edinburgh, 1843-49)
i. 280-81.
2 Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of England (London, 1875), pp.
98,/f. The rubric is to be found, in The Two Liturgies with other Documents
set forth by Authority in the reign of King Edu-ard the Sixth (Cambridge,
1842), p. 283. The volume is one of the Parker Society's publications.
^ The questions will be found in the volumes, Original Letters, published
by the Parker Society (Cambridge, 1847), p. 745 ; and in The Works of John
Knox, et"-, iii. 221.
288 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
toleration and straightforward action stands in noble
contrast with the narrow-minded and crooked policy of his
opponents. They were the time of his peaceful and happy
ministrations among the refugees at Geneva. They made
him familiar with the leading Protestants of France and
of Switzerland, and taught him the inner political condition
of the nations of Europe. They explain Knox's constant
and accurate information in later years, when he seemed to
leam about the doings of continental statesmen as early as
Cecil, with all the resources of the English Foreign Office
behind him. Above all, they made him see that, humanly
speaking, the fate of the whole Eeformation movement was
bound up with an alliance between a Protestant England
and a Protestant Scotland.
Knox returned to Scotland for a brief visit of about
ten mouths (Sept. 1555— July 1556). He exhorted those
who visited him in his lodgings in Edinburgh, and made
preaching tours, dispensing the Lord's Supper according to
the Eeformed rite on several occasions. He visited Dun,
Calder House, Barr, Ayr, Ochiltree, and several other places,
and was welcomed in the houses of many of the nobility.
He left for Geneva in July-, having found time to marry
his first wife, Marjory Bowes, — uxor suamssima, and " a
wife whose like is not to be found everywhere," ^ Calvin calls
her, — and having put some additional force into the growing
Protestantism of his native land. He tells us that most
part of the gentlemen of the Mearns " band thame selfis,
to the uttermost of thare poweris, to manteane the trew
preaching of the Evangell of Jesus Christ, as God should
offer unto thame preacheris and opportunitie " — whether
by word of mouth or in writing, is not certain.^
I In 1557 (Dec. 3rd) the Protestants of Scotland laid
the foundations of a definite organisation. It took a
^ Calvin to Knox (April 23rd, 1561) ; Calvin to Goodman (April 23rd,
1561) ; The Works of John Knox, etc. vi. 124, 125 ; cf. Calvini Opera
(Amsterdam, 1667), ix. Episiolce et Responsa, p. 150.
2 The Works of John Knox, etc. i. 251 ; D. Hay Fleming, The Story of
the Scottish Covenants in Oxdline (Edinburgli, 1904), p. 6.
"THE BAND SUBSCRIVED BY THE LORDS " 289
form familiar enough in the civil history of the country,
where the turbulent character of the Scottish barons and
the weakness of the central authority led to constant
confederations to carry out with safety enterprises some-
times legal and sometimes outside the law. The con-
federates promised to assist each other in the work
proposed, and to defend each other from the consequences
following. Such agreements were often drafted in legal
fashion by public notaries, and made binding by all forms
of legal security known. The Lords of the Congregation,
as they came to be called, followed a prevailing custom
when they promised —
"Befoir the Majestic of God and His congregatioun, that
we (be His grace) shall with all diligence continually apply
our hole power, substance, and our verray lyves, to
manteane, sett fordward, and estabhsh the most blessed
word of God and His Congregatioun ; and shall laubour at
our possibilitie to have faythfull Ministeris purely and
trewlie to minister Christis Evaugell and Sacramentes to
His people." ^
This " Band subscrived by the Lords " was the first
(if the promise made by the gentlemen of the Mearns be
excepted) of the many Covenants famous in the history
of the Church of Scotland Eeformed,^ It was an old
Scottish usage now impregnated with a new , spiritual
meaning, and become a public promise to God, after Old
Testament fashion, to be faithful to His- word and guidance.
This important act had immediate consequences. The
confederated Lords sent letters to Knox, then at Geneva,
and to Calvin, urging the return of the Scottish Eeformer
to his native land. They also passed two notable re-
solutions:
" First, It is thought expedient, devised and ordeaned that
in all parochines of this Realme the Common Prayeris (prob-
* The Works of John Knox, etc. i. 273.
2 For the Covenants of the Scottish Church, cf. D. Hay Fleming, The
Story of the Scottish Covenants in OxctUnc (Edinburgh, 1904).
19**
290 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
ably the Second Prayer-Book of Edward vi.^) be redd owklie
(weekly) on Sounday, and other festuall dayis, publictlie in
the Paroche Kirkis, with the Lessonis of the New and Old
Testament, conforme to the ordour of the Book of Common
Prayeris : And yf the curattis of the parochynes be qualified
to cause thame to reid the samyn ; and yf thei be nott, 6r
yf thei refuise, that the maist qualified in the parish ufee
and read the same. Secoundly, it is thought necessare that
doctrin, preacheing and interpretatioun of Scriptures be
had and used privatlie in Qvvyet housis, without great coh-
ventionis of the people tharto, whill afterward that G6d
move the Prince to grant publict preacheing be faithful aild
trew ministeris.'' ^
The Earl of Argyle set the example by maintaining
John Douglas, and making him preach publicly in his
mansion.
This conduct evidently alarmed the Queen Mother,
who had been made Eegent in 1554 (April 12th), and
she attempted to stir the Primate to exercise his powers
for the repression of heresy. The Archbishop wrote to
Argyle urging him to dismiss Douglas, apologising at the
same time for his interference by saying that the Queen
wondered that he could "thole" persons with perverted
doctrine within his diocese.
Another step in advance was taken some time in 1558,
when it was resolved to give the Congregation, the whole
company of those in Scotland who sincerely accepted the
Evangelical Eeformation, " the face of a Church," by the
creation and recognition of an authority which could
exercise discipline. A number of elders were chosen
" by common election," to whom the whole of the brethren
promised obedience. The lack of a publicly recognised
ministry was supplied by laymen, who gave themselves
to the work of exhortation ; and at the head of them w^as
^ Cecil, writing to Throckmorton in Paris (July 9th, 1559), says that in
Scotland " they deliver the parish churches of altars, and receive the
service of the Church of England jiccording to King Edward's book"
{Calendar of State Papers, Mizabeth, Foreign, 1558-59, p. 367).
^ The Works of John Knox, etc. i. 275.
THE REGENT AND "THE CONGREGATION 291
to be found Erskine of Dun. The first regularly constituted
Eeformed church in Scotland was in the town of Dundee.^
The organisation gave the Protestant leaders boldness,
and, through Sir James Sandilands, they petitioned the
Eegent to permit them to worship publicly according to
the Eeformed fashion, and to reform the wicked lives of
the clergy. This led to the offer of a compromise, whicli
was at once rejected, as it would have compelled the
Eeformed to reverence the Mass, and to approve of prayers
to the saints. The Queen Mother then permitted public
worship, save in Leith and Edinburgh. The Lords of
the Congregation next demanded a suspension of tlie laws
which gave the clergy power to try and punish heresy,
until a General Council, lawfully assembled, should decide
upon points then debated in religion ; and that all
suspected of heresy should have a fair trial before
" temporal judges." ^ When the Eegent, who gave them
" amyable lookis and good wordes in aboundance," refused
to allow their petition to come before the Estates; and
kept it " close in hir pocket," the Eeformers resolved to go
to Parliament directly with another petition, in which
they - declared that since they had not been able to
secure a reformation, they had resolved to follow their
own consciences in matters of religion ; that they would
defend themselves and all of their way of thinking if
attacked ; that if tumults arose in consequence, the blame
was with those who refused a just reformation ; and that
in forwarding this petition they had nothing in view but
the reformation of abuses in religion.^
Knox had been invited by the Earl of Glencairn, the
Lords Erskine and Lorn, and James Stewart (afterwards
the Earl of Moray), to return to Scotland in 155 7^ He
reached Dieppe in October, and found letters awaiting
him which told him that the times were not ripe. The
^ The Works of John Knox, etc. i. 300. = Ibid. etc. i. 301-12.
3 Ibid. etc. i, 313.
■* The coiTes}x)ridence will be found iu The Works of John Knox^ eti\ i.
267/., iv. 251/.
J
292 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
answer he sent spurred the Keforming lords to constitute
the Band of December 1557. It was while he was at
Dieppe, chafing at the new^s he had received, that he
composed the violent treatise, entitled The First Blast of
the Trumpet against the Mo7istroits Regiinent of Women ^ —
a book which did more to hamper his future than any-
thing else. The state of things was exasperating to a
man who longed to be at work in Scotland or England.
" Bloody " Mary in England was hounding on her officials
to burn Knox's co-religionists, and the Reformation, which
had made so much progress under Edward vi., seemed to
be entirely overthrown ; while Mary of Guise, the Queen
Mother and Regent in Scotland, was inciting the unwilling
Archbishop of St. Andrews to make use of his legatine and
episcopal powers to repress the believers of his native land.
But as chance would have it, Mary Tudor was dead before
the pamphlet was widely known, and the Queen whom of
all others he desired to conciliate was seated on the
throne of England, aud had made William Cecil, the
staunchest of Protestants, her Secretary of State. She
could scarcely avoid believing that the Blast was meant
for her ; and, even if not, it was based on such general
principles that it might prove dangerous to one whose
throne was still insecure. It is scarcely to be wondered
at that the Queen never forgave the vehement writer,
and that the Blast was a continual obstacle to a complete
understanding between the Scottish Reformer and his
English allies.^ If Knox would never confess publicly to
([ueens, whether to Elizabeth Tudor or to Mary Stuart,
that he had done wrong, he was ready to say to a friend
whom he loved :
" My rude vehemencie and inconsidered affirmations,
which may rather appear to procead from coler then of
zeal and reason, I do not excuse."^
^ The Works of John Knox, etc. iv. 349.
2 Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Scries, on the Rdgn of Elizabeth^
1559-60, pp. 73, 77 ; 1558-59, pp. 306, 310.
^ The IVovks of John Knox, ete. v. 5.
THE REGENT AND "THE CONGREGATION" 293
It was the worse for Knox and for Scotland, for the
reign of women had begun. Charles v., Francis L, and
Henry viii. had passed away, and the destinies of Europe
were to be in the hands of Elizabeth, Catherine de' Medici,
Mary Stuart, and Philip of Spain, the most felinely feminine
of the four.
Events marched fast in Scotland after Knox returned
in the early summer of 1559. The Queen Kegent and
the Lords of the Congregation were facing each other,
determined on a trial of strength. Knox reached
Edinburgh on May 2nd, 15"59, and hurried on to Dundee,
where the Eeformed had gathered in some force. They
had resolved to support their brethren in maintaining public
worship according to the usages of the Eeformed Church,
and , in repressing " idolatrie " in all towns where a
majority of the inhabitants had declared for the Eeformed
religion. The Eegent threw down the gauntlet by sum-
moning the preachers to appear before her, and by inhibiting
their preaching. The Lords took it up by resolving that
they would answer the summons and appear along with
their preachers. A letter was addressed to the Eegent
(May 6th, 1559) by " The professouris of Christis Evangell
in the realme of Scotland." It was an admirable statement
of the principles of the Scottish Eeformation, and may be
thus summarised:
" It records the hope, once entertained by the writers,
that God would make her the instrument of setting up and
maintaining his Word and true worship, of defending his
congregation, and of downputting all idolatry, abomination,
and superstition in the realm; it expresses their grief on
learning that she was determined to do the very opposite;
it warns her against crossing the bounds of her own office,
and usurping a power in Christ's kingdom which did not
belong to her; it distinguishes clearly between the civil
jurisdiction and the spiritual; it asks her to recall her
letters inhibiting God's messengers; it insists that His
message ought to be received even though the speaker
shoukf lack the ordinary vocation; it claims that the
ministers who liad been inhil)ited were sent by God, and
294 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
were also called according to Scriptural order ; it points out
that her commands must be disobeyed if contrary to God's,
and that the enemies were craftily inducing her to com-
mand unjust things so that the professors, when they dis-
obeyed, might be condemned for sedition and rebellion ; it
pled with her to have pity on those who were seeking the
glory of God and her true obedience ; it declared that, by
God's help, they would go forward in the way they had
begun, that they would receive and assist His ministers
and Word, and that they would never join themselves again
to the abominations they had forsaken, though all the
powers on earth should command them to do so ; it conveyed
their humble submission to her, in all obedience due to her
in peace, in war, in body, in goods and in lands ; and it
closed with the prayer that the eternal God would instruct,
strengthen, and lead her by His Spirit in the way that was
acceptable to Him." ^
Then began a series of trials of strength in which the
Eegent had generally the better, because she was supplied
with disciplined troops from France, which were more than
a match for the feudal levies of the Lords of the Congrega-
tion. The uprising of the people against the Eegent and
the Prelates was characterised, as in France and the
Low Countries, with an outbreak of iconoclasm which did
no good to the Protestant cause. In the three countries
the " raschall multitude " could not be restrained by the
exhortation of the preachers nor by the commandment
of the magistrates from destroying " the places of
idolatrie." ^
From the beginning, Knox had seen that the Reformers
had small hope of ultimate success unless they were aided
from England ; and lie was encouraged to expect help
because he knew that the salvation of Protestant England
lay in its support of the Lords of the Congregation in
Scotland.
The years from 1559 to 1567 were the most critical
in the whole history of the Reformation. The existence
^ This summary has been taken from Dr. Hay Fleming's admirable little
book, The Scottish Reformation (Edinburgh, 1904), p. 44.
^ The Works of John Knox, etc. i. 319.
KNOX AND CECIL 295
of the Protestantism of all Europe was involved in the
struggle in Scotland ; and for the first and perhaps last
time in her history the eyes that had the furthest vision,
whether in Rome, for centuries the citadel of mediaevalism,
or in Geneva, the stronghold of Protestantism, were turned
towards the little backward northern kingdom. They
watched the birth-throes of a new nation, a British nation
which was coming into being. Two peoples, long heredi-
tary foes, were coalescing; the Romanists in England re-
cognised the Scottish Queen as their legitimate sovereign,
and the Protestants in Scotland looked for aid to their
brethren in England. The question was : Would the new
nation accept the Reformed religion, or would the reaction
triumph ? If Knox and the Congregation gained the
uppei' hand in Scotland, and if Cecil was able to guide
England in the way he meant to lead it (and the two men
were necessary to each other, and knew it), then the Refor-
mation was safe. If Scotland could be kept for France
and the Roman Church, and its Romanist Queen make
good her claim to the English throne, then the Reformation
would be crushed not merely within Great Britain, but in
Germany and the Low Countries also. So thought the
politicians, secular and ecclesiastical, in Rome and Geneva,
in Paris, Madrid, and in London. The European situation
had been summed up by Cecil : " The Emperor is aiming
at the sovereignty of Europe, which he cannot obtain with-
out the suppression of the Reformed religion, and, unless
he crushes England, he cannot crush the Reformation.*'
In this peril a Scotland controlled by the Guises would
have been fatal to the existence of the Reformation.
In 1559 the odds seemed in favour of reaction, if only
its supporters were whole-hearted enough to put aside for
the time national rivalries. The Treaty of Cateau-
Cambresis, concluded scarcely a month before Knox reached
Scotland (April 1559), had secret clauses which bound
the Kings of France and Spain to crush the Protestantism
of Europe, in terms which made the young Prince of
Orange, when he learned them, vow silently to devote his
J
296 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
life to protect his fellow-countrymen and drive the " scum
of the Spaniards" out of the Netherlands. Henry ii. of
France, with his Edict of Chateaubriand and his Chanibre
Ardente, with the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal Lorraine
to counsel him, and Diana of Poitiers to keep him. up to
the mark, was doing his best to exterminate the Protestants
of France. Dr. Christopher Mundt kept reporting to
Queen Elizabeth and her Minister the symptoms of a
general combination against the Protestants of Europe —
symptoms ranging from a proposed conquest of Denmark
to the Emperor's forbidding members of his Household to
attend Protestant services.^ Throckmorton wrote almost
passionately from Paris urging Cecil to support the Scottish
Lords of the Congregation ; and even Dr. Mundt in Strass-
burg saw that the struggle in Scotland was the most
important fact in the European situation.^
Yet it was difficult for Cecil to send the aid which
Knox and the Scottish Protestants needed sorely. It
meant that the sovereign of one country aided men of
another country who were de Jure rebels against their own
sovereign. It seemed a hazardous policy in the case of
a Queen like Elizabeth, who was not yet freed from the
danger arising from rebellious subjects. There was France,
with which England had just made peace. Cecil had
difficulties with Elizabeth. She did not like Calvin him-
self. She had no sympathy with his theology, which, with
its mingled sob and hosanna, stirred the hearts of oppressed
peoples. There was Knox and his Blast, to say nothing
of his appealing to the commonalty of his country. " God
^ Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth,
1558-59, pp. 245, 259 ; 1559-60, p. 182. The whole of Dr. Muudt's
correspondence is interesting, and shows that after the Treaty of Cateau-
Cambr^is continual incidents occurred showing that the Romanists were
regaining the hope of repressing the whole Protestant movement.
2 Ibid. 1559-60, p. 68 : "All good men hope that England, warned by
the dangers of others, will take care, by dissimulation and art that the
nation near to itself, whose cause is the same as her own, shall not be
first deserted and then overwhelmed " {Dr. Mundt to Cecil, Oct. 29th,
1.559).
KNOX AND CECIL 297
keep us from such visitations as Knockes hath attempted
in Scotland ; the people to be orderers of things ! " wrote
Dr. Parker to Cecil on the 6th of November.^ Yet Cecil
knew — no man better — that if the Lords of the Congrega-
tion failed there was little hope for a Protestant England,
and that Elizabeth's crown and Dr. Parker's mitre depended
on the victory of Knox in Scotland.
He watched the struggle across the border. He had
made up his mind as early as July 8th, 1559, that assist-
ance must be given to the Lords of the Congregation " with
all fair promises first, next with money, and last with
arms." ^ The second stage of his programme was reached
in November; and, two days before the Archbishop of
Canterbury was piously invoking God*s help to keep
Knox's influences out of England, Cecil had resolved to
send money to Scotland and to entrust its distribution to
Knox. The memorandum runs : Knox to be a counsel
with the payments, to see that they be employed to the
common action.^
The third stage — assistance with arms — came sooner
than might have been expected. The condition of France
became more favo arable. Henry ii. had died (July 10th,
1559), and the Guises ruled France through their niece
Mary and her sickly devoted husband. But the Bourbon
Princes and many of the higher nobles did not take kindly
to the sudden rise of a family which had been French for
only two generations, and the easiest way to annoy them
was to favour publicly or secretly " those of the religion."
There was unrest in France. " Beat the iron while it is
hot," Throckmorton wrote from Paris ; " their fair flatter-
ings and sweet language are only to gain time." * Cecil
struck. He had a sore battle with his royal mistress, but
Ijc won.^ An arrangement was come to between England
* Calendar of State Papei^s, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth,
loo9-60, p. 84.
2 Ibid. J5oS-,59, p. 365, Cecil to Crojt, July 81h, 1559.
3 Ihid. 15v9-60, p. 79. * Ibid. p. 352.
' Cf. his pathetic letter offering to resign. Ibid. p. 186 n.
298 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
and the Lords of the Congregation acting on behalf ' of
the second person of the realm of Scotland " (Treaty of
Berwick, May 10th, 1560).i An English fleet entered
the Firth of Forth ; an English army beleaguered the
French troops in Leith Fort ; and the end of it was that
France was obliged to let go its hold on Scotland, and
never thoroughly recovered it (Treaty of Edinburgh, July
6th, 1560).^ The great majority of the Scottish people
saw in the English victory only their deliverance from
French tyranny, and for the first time a conquering English
army left the Scottish soil followed by blessings and not
curses. The Scottish Liturgy, which had contained
Prayers used in the Churches of Scotland in the time of their
'persecution hy the Frenchmen, was enriched by a Thanksgiving
unto God after our deliverance from the tyranny of the
Frerwhmen; tuith prayers made for the continuance of the
peace betwixt the realms of England and Scotland, which
contained the following petition :
"And seeing that when we by our owne power were
altogether unable to have freed ourselves from the tyranny
of strangers, and from the bondage and thraldome pretended
against us. Thou of thyne especial goodnes didst move the
hearts of our neighbours (of whom we deserved no such
favour) to take upon them the common burthen with us,
and for our deliverance not only to spend the lives of many,
but also to hazarde the estate and tranquillity of their
Eealme and commonwealth : Grant unto us, O Lord, that
with such reverence we may remember thy benefits received
that after this in our defaute we never enter into hostilitie
against the Eealme and nation of England."^
The Eegent had died during the course of the
hostilities, and Cecil, following and improving upon the
^ The Duke of Cliatellerault (Earl of Arran) was next in succession after
Mary and lier offspring ; cf. a curious note on liim and his doings, ibid.
p. 24 n. For the Treaty, cf. Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland
and Mary Queen of Scots, i. 403, and The Works of John Knox, etc. ii. 45 ff.
2 Calendar of State Pajjers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth,
1560-61, pp. 172-78.
3 The Works of John Knox, etc. vi. 309, 313, 314.
KNOX AND CECIL 299
wise policy of Protector Somerset, left it entirely to the
Scots to settle their own affairs.^
Now or never was the opportunity for Knox and the
Lords of the Congregation. They had not been idle during
the months since Knox had arrived in Scotland. They
had strengthened the ties uniting them by three additional
Bands, At a meeting of the Congregation of the West
with the Congregations of Fife, Perth, Dundee, Angus,
Mearns, and Montrose, held in Perth (May 31st, 1559),
they had covenanted to spare neither
"labouris, goodis, substancis, bodyis, and lives, in mantean-
ing the libertie of the haill Congregatioun and everie member
thairof, aganis whatsomevir power that shall intend trubill
for the cans of religion." ^
They had renewed this Ba7id in Edinburgh on July
13th; and at Stirling (Aug. 1st) they had covenanted,
" that nane of us sail in tymeis cuming pas to the
Quenis Grace Dowriare, to talk or commun withhir for
any letter without consent of the rest and commone
consul tatioun."' 2
They had the bitter satisfaction of knowing that
although the French troops and officers of the Eegent
were too strong for them in the field, the insolence and
rapine of these foreigners was rousing all ranks and classes
in Scotland to see that their only deliverance lay in the
English alliance and the triumph of the Eeformation. Tlie
Band oi 1560 (April 27th) included, with "the nobilitie,
barronis, and gentilmen professing Chryst Jesus in Scot-
land . . . dyveris utheris that joyint with us, for expelling
of the French army : amangis quham the Erie of Huntlie
was principall." *
The Estates or Parliament met in Edinburgh on
^ "Matters of religion to be passed over iii silence " {Calendar of State
Papers, etc. p. 178).
2 The IFarks of John Knox, etc. i. 344.
' Ibid. i. 382. * Ibid. ii. 61.
J
300 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
July 10th, 1560. Neither the French nor the English
soldiers had left ; so they adjourned to August Ist, and
again to the 8th.^
Meanwhile Knox and the Congregation were husy.
The Eeformer excelled himself in the pulpit of St. Giles',
lecturing daily on the Book of the Prophet Haggai (on
the building of the Temple) — " a doctrine proper for the
time." 2 Eandolph wrote to Cecil, Aug. 15th:
" Sermons are daylie, and greate audience ; though dyvers
or the nobles present ar not resolved in religion, yet do
thei repayre to the prechynges, which gevethe a good hope
to maynie that God wyll bowe their hartes." ^
The Congregation held a great thanksgiving service
in St. Giles' ; and after it arranged for eight fully con-
stituted churches, and appointed five superintendents in
matters of religion.* They also prepared a petition for
Parliament asking for a settlement of the religious question
in the way they desired.^ At the request of the Estates
or Parliament, Knox and five companions prepared The
Confessioun of Faith professii and helevit he the Frotestantis
within the Bealme of Scotland, which was ratified and ap-
proved as " hailsome and sound doctrine, groundit upoun
the infallible trewth of Godis Word." It was afterwards
issued by the Estates as the " summe of that doctrin quhilk
we professe, and for the quhilk we haif sustenit infamy and
daingear."^ Seven days later (Aug. 24th), the Estates
decreed that " the Bischope of Eome have na jurisdictioun
nor authoritie in this Eealme in tymes cuming " ; they
^ Cf. Calendar qf State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of
Scots, i. 456-62.
- The Works of John Knox, etc. ii. 88.
^ Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots,
i. 461.
* Spottiswoode, History of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1847), i.
325.
* The Works of John Knox, etc. ii. 89.
^ Ibid. ii. 95 ; (Dunlop's) Collection of Confessions of Faith, eta
(Edinburgh, 1722) ii. 17, 18.
THE REFORMED CHURCH 301
annulled all Acts of previous Parliaments which were con-
trary to the Confession of Faith ; and they forbade the
saying, hearing, or being present at Mass, under penalty of
confiscation of goods and bodily punishment at the dis-
cretion of the magistrates for the first offence, of banish-
ment for the second, and of death for the third.^ These
severe penalties, however, were by no means rigidly enforced.
Lesley (Eoman Catholic Bishop of Eoss) says in his
History :
" The clemency of the heretic nobles must not be left
unmentioned, since at that time they exiled few Catholic
on the score of religion, imprisoned fewer, and put none to
death." 2
' One thing still required to be done — to draft a
constitution for the new Protestant Church. The work
was committed to the same ministers who had compiled
the Confession. They had been asked to prepare it as
early as April 29th, and they had it ready for the
Lords of the Congregation within a month. It was not
approved by the Estates ; but was ordered to be sub-
mitted to the next general meeting, and was meanwhile
translated into Latin, to be sent to Calvin, Viret, and Beza
in Geneva.^ The delay seemed to some to arise from the
unwillingness of many of the lords to see " their carnal
liberty and worldly commoditie impaired " ; * but another
cause was also at work. Cecil evidently wished that
the Church in Scotland should be uniform with the Church
in England, and had instructed Eandolph .to press this
question of uniformity. It was a favourite idea with
statesmen of both countries — pressed on Scotland by
England during the reigns of James I. and Charles i., and
by Scotland on England in the Solemn League and
1 Act. Pari. Scot. ii. 526-35.-
" Lesley, Dc Rchus Gcstis Scotorum (Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh),
p. 537.
^ Cale'iidar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots^
i. 472, in a letter from Randolph to Cecil of Aug. 25th.
* The Works uf John Knox, etc. ii. 128.
i
302 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
Covenant. Eandolph was wise enough to see that such
uniformity was an impossibility.^
The Confession of the Faith and Doctrine^ Believed and
Professed hy the Protestants of Scotland, was translated into
Latin, and, under the title Confessio Scoticana, occupies an
honoured place in the collections of the creeds of the
Eeformed Churches. It remained the symbol of the
Church of Scotland during the first stormy century of its
existence. It was displaced by the Westminster Con-
fession in 1647, only on the understanding that the later
document was " in nothing contrary " to the former ; and
continued authoritative long after that date.^ Drawn up
in haste by a small number of theologians, it is more
sympathetic and human than most creeds, and has com-
mended itself to many who object to the impersonal logic
of the Westminster Confession.^ The first sentence of the
preface gives the tone to the whole :
" Lang have we thirsted, dear Brethren, to have notified
to the Warld the Sum of that Doctrine quhilk we professe,
and for quhilk we have susteined Infamie and Danger ; Bot
sik has bene the Eage of Sathane againis us, and againis
Christ Jesus his eternal Veritie latlie now againe born
amangst us, that to this dale na Time has been graunted
unto us to cleir our Consciences as maist gladlie we wald
have done."^
The preface also puts more clearly than any similiar
document save the First Confession of Basel the reverence
^ Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots,
i. 471, 472.
2 The Scots Confession is to be found in (Dunlop's) Collection of Confessions
of Faith, Catechisms, Directories, Books of Discipline, etc., of Public Authority
in the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1722), ii. 13.^., where the Scots and
the Latin versions are printed in parallel columns ; in Schaff' s Creeds of the
Evangelical Protestant Churches (London, 1877), pp. 437^. ; and the Latin
version alone in K'iemeyer, Collectio Confcssionum in Ecclcsiis Rcformatis
jmblicatartim (Leipzig, 1840), pp. SiOff. For a statement of its characteristics,
cf. Mitchell, The Scottish Reformation (Baird Lecture for 1899, Edinburgh.
1900), pp. 99/.
^ As Edward Irving, cf. Collected Writings (London, 1864), i. 601/.
^ (Dunlop's) Collection of Confessions, etc. pp. 15-18.
THE SCOTS CONFESSION 303
felt by the early Eeformers for the Word of God and the
renunciation of any claim to infallibility of interpreta-
tion :
"Protestand that gif onie man will note in this our
confessioun onie Artickle repugnand to Gods halie word,
that it wald pleis him of his gentleness and for- christian
charities sake to admonish us of the same in writing ; and we
upon our honoures and fidelitie, be Gods grace do promise
unto him satisfaction fra the mouth of God, that is fra his
haly scriptures, or else reformation of that quhilk he sal
prove to be amisse."
The Confession itself contains the truths common to
the Keformed creeds of the Eeformation. It contains all
the (Ecumenical doctrines, as they have been called — that
is, the truths taught in the early (Ecumenical Councils,
and embodied in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds ; and
adds those doctrines of grace, of pardon, and of enlighten-
ment through Word and Spirit which were brought into
special prominence by the Eeformation revival of religion.
The Confession is more remarkable for quaint suggestive-
ness of titles than for any special peculiarity of doctrine.
Thus- the doctrine of revelation is defined by itself, apart
from the doctrine of Scripture, under the title of " The
Eevelation of the Promise." Election is treated according
to the view of earlier Calvinism as a means of gi^ace, and
an evidence of the "invincible power" of the Godhead in
salvation. The " notes by which the true Kirk is discerned
from the false " are said to be the true preaching of the
Word of God, the right administration of the sacraments,
and ecclesiastical discipline rightly administered. The
authority of Scriptures is said to come from God, and to
depend neither " on man nor angels " ; and the Church
knows them to be true, because " the true kirk always
heareth and obeyeth the voice of her own spouse and
pastor."
Eandolph says in a letter to Cecil (September 7 th,
1560) that before the Confession was publicly read it was
revised by Lethiugton and Lord James Stewart, who " dyd
304 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
mytigate the austeritie of maynie wordes and sentences,"
and that a certain article which dealt with the " dysobediens
that subjects owe unto their magistrates " was advised to
be left out.^ Thus amended it was read over, and then
re-read article by article in the Estates, and passed
without alteration,^ — " no man present gainsaying." *
When it was read before the Estates :
" Maynie offered to sheede ther blude in defence of the
same. The old Lord of Lynsay, as grave and goodly a man
as ever I sawe, said, ' I have lyved maynie yeres, I am the
eldest in thys Compagnie of my sorte ; nowe that yt hathe
pleased God to lett me see thys daye wher so maynie nobles
and other have allowed so worthie a work, I will say with
Simion, Nunc dimittis.' " *
A copy was sent to Cecil, and Maitland of Lethington
assured him that if there was anything in the Confession of
Faith which the English Minister misliked, " It may
eyther be changed (if the mater so permit) or at least in
some thyng qualifieed " ; which shows the anxiety of the
Scots to keep step with their English allies.^
The authors of the Confession were asked to draw
up a short statement showing how a Keformed Church
could best be governed. The result was the remark-
able document which was afterwards called the First
Book of Discipline, or the Policie and Discipline of the
Church.^ It provided for the government of the Church
by kirk-sessions, synods, and general assemblies ; and
recognised as office-bearers in the Church, ministers,
teachers, elders, deacons, superintendents, and readers.
' Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots,
i. 477, 478.
2 The Works of John Knox, etc. ii. 121.
' Calendar of State Papers, etc. i. 465, Maitland to Cecil (August
18th).
^Ibid. i. 467, Randolph to Cecil (August 19th).
^ Ibid. i. 479, Maitland to Cecil (September 13th).
^ For a description of tlie First Book of Discipline, of. Mitchell, The
Scottish Rrformation, etc. pp. 144^. The document itself is to be found in
(Duiilop's) Collection of Covfcssions, etc. ii. 515^.
ORGANISATION 305
The authors of this Book of Discipline professed to go
directly to Scripture for the outlines of the system of
Church government which they advised their countrymen
to adopt, and their profession was undoubtedly sincere and
likewise just. They were, however, all of them men
in sympathy with Calvin, and had had personal
intercourse with the Protestants of France. Their form
of governmeut is clearly inspired by Calvin's ideas as
stated in his Institution, and follows closely the Ecclesi-
astical Ordinances of the French Church. The offices of
superintendent and reader were added to the usual three-
fold or fourfold Presbyterian form of government. The
former was due to the unsettled state of the country
and the scarcity of Protestant pastors. The Super-
intendents took charge of districts corresponding not
very exactly with the Episcopal dioceses, and were ordered
to make annual reports to the General Assembly of the
ecclesiastical and religious state of their provinces, and
to preach in the various churches in their district. The
Readers owed their existence to the small number of Pro-
testant pastors, to the great importance attached by the
early Scottish Eeformers to an educated ministry, and also
to the difficulty of procuring funds for the support of
pastors in every parish. They were of two classes — those
of a higher grade, who were permitted to deliver addresses
and who were called Exhorters\ and those of tihe lower
grade, whose duty it was to read " distinctly " the Common
Prayers and the Scriptures. Both classes were expected
to teach the younger children. Exhorters .who studied
theology diligently and satisfied the synod of their learning
could rise to be ministers. The Book of Discipline contains
a chapter on the patrimony of the Church which urges the
necessity of preserving monies possessed by the Church
for the maintenance of religion, the support of education,
and the help of the poor. The presence of this chapter
prevented the book being accepted by the Estates in the
same way as the Confession of Faith. The barons, greater
and lesser, who sat there had in too many cases appropriated
20**
306 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
the " patrimony of the Kirk " to their own private uses,
and were unwilHng to sign a document which condemned
their conduct. The Book of Discipline approved by the
General Assembly, and signed by a large number of the
nobles and burgesses, never received the legal sanction
accorded to the Confession.
The General Assembly of the Eeformed Church of
Scotland met for the first time in 1560; and thereafter,
in spite of the struggle in which the Church was involved,
meetings were held generally twice a year, sometimes oftener,
and the Church was organised for active work.
A third book, variously called The Book of Common
Order} The Order of Geneva, and now frequently Knox 8
Liturgy, was a directory for the public worship and
services of the Church. It was usually bound up with
a metrical version of the Psalms, and is often spoken of
as the Psalm Book.
Calvin's Catechism was translated and ordered to be
used for the instruction of the youth in the faith. Later,
the Heidelberg Catechism was translated and annotated for
' the same purpose. They were both superseded by Craig's
I Catechism^ which in its turii gave way to the Larger and
Shorter Catechisms of the Westminster Divines.^
The democratic ideas of Presbyterianism, enforced by
the practical necessity of trusting in the people, made
the Scotch Eeformers pay great attention to education.
All the leaders of the Eeformation, whether in Germany,
France, or Holland, had felt the importance of enlighten-
ing the commonalty ; but perhaps Scotland and Holland
were the two countries where the attempt was most
successful. The education of the people was no new
thing in Scotland ; and although in the troublous times
before and during the Eeformation high schools had
* For the Book of Common Order, cf. Mitchell's Scottish Reformation,
pp. 133^'. The Book itself is to he found in (Dunlop's) Collection of
Confessions, 11. 383 j/'. It has been published with learned preface and notes
by Sprott and Leishnian (Edinburgh, 1868).
2 Bonar's Catechisms of the Scottish Reformation (London, 1866) ;
(Dunlop's) Collection of Confcssiovs, etc. ii. 139-382.
EDUCATION 307
disappeared and the Universities had decayed, still the
craving for learning had not altogether died out. Knox
and his friend George Buchanan had a magnificent
scheme of endowing schools in every parish, hif»-h
schools or colleges in all important towns, and of in-
creasing the power and influence of the Universities.
Their scheme, owing to the greed of the Barons, who had
seized the Church property, was little more than a devout
imagination ; but it laid hold on the mind of Scotland, and
the lack of endowments was more than compensated by
the craving of the people for education. The three
Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen took
new hfe, and a fourth, the University of Edinburgh, was
founded. Scotch students who had been trained in the
continental schools of learning, and who had embraced
the Eeformed faith, were employed to superintend the
newly-organised educational system of the country, and
the whole organisation was brought into sympathy with
the everyday life of the people by the preference given
to day schools over boarding schools, and by a system of
inspection by the most pious and learned men in each
circle of parishes. Knox also was prepared to order
compulsory attendance at school on the part of two
classes of society, the upper and the lower — the middle
class he thought might be trusted to its own natural
desire for learning; and he wished to see the 'State so
exercise power and patronage as to lay hold on all youths
"of parts" and compel them to proceed to the high
schools and Universities, that the commonwealth might
get the greatest good of their service.
The form of Church government given in the First
Book of Discipline represented rather an outline requiring
to be filled in than a picture of what actually existed for
many a year after 1560. It " provided for a form of
Church government by ecclesiastical councils rising from
the Session of the individual congregation up to a
National Assembly, and its first requisite was a fully
organised church in every parish ruled by a minister
A
308 THE REFORM.ATION IN SCOTLAND
with his Session or council of Elders and his body of
Deacons. But there was a great lack of men having the
necessary amount of education to be ordained as ministers,
and consequently there were few fully equipped con-
gregations. The first court in existence was the Kirk-
Session ; it was in being in every organised congregation.
The second in order of time was the General Assembly.
Its first meeting was in Edinburgh, Dec. 20th, 1560.
Forty-two members were present, of whom only six were
ministers. These were the small beginnings from which
it grew. The Synods came into existence later. At first
they were yearly gatherings of the ministry of the
Superintendent's district, to which each congregation
within the district was asked to send an Elder and a
Deacon. The Court of the Presbytery came latest into
existence ; it had its beginnings in the " weekly exercise."
The work had been rapidly done. Barely a year
had elapsed between the return of Knox to Scotland and
the establishment of the Eeformed religion by the Estates.
Calvin wrote from Geneva (Nov. 8th, 1559):
" As we wonder at success incredible in so short a time,
so also we give great thanks to God, whose special blessing
here shines forth."
And Knox himself, writing from the midst of the
battle, says : ^
" We doe nothing but goe about Jericho, blowing with
trumpets, as God giveth strength, hoping victorie by his
power alone." ^
But dangers had been imminent ; shot at through
his window, deadly ambushes set, and the man's powers
taxed almost beyond endurance :
" In twenty-four hours I have not four free to naturall
rest and ease of this wicked carcass ... I have nead of a
* The Works of John Knox, etc. vi. 95.
* Ibid. vi. 78, Knox to Mrs. Anna Locke (Sept. 2nd, 1559).
QUEEN MARY IN ^SCOTLAND 309
good and an assured horse, for great watch is laid for my
apprehension, and large money promissed till any that shall
kyll me." ^
J If the victory had been won, it was not secured. The
1 sovereigns Mary and Francis had refused to ratify the
Acts of their Estates ; and it was not until Mary was
deposed in 1567 that the Acts of the Estates of 1560
were legally placed on the Statute Book of Scotland.
Francis ii. died in 1560 (Dec. 5th), and Mary the
young and widowed Queen returned to her native land
(Aug. 19th, 1561). Her coming was looked forward to
with dread by the party of the Reformation.
I There was abundant reason for alarm. Marv was
' the Stuart Queen ; she represented France, the old
hereditary ally ; she had been trained from childhood by a
: consummate politician and deadly enemy of the Reforma-
tion, her uncle the Cardinal of Lorraine, to be his
instrument to win back Scotland and England to the
deadliest type of Eomanism. She was a lovely creature,
and was, besides, gifted with a power of personal fascination
greater than her physical charms, and such as no other
woman of her time possessed ; she had a sweet caressing
voice, beautiful hands; and not least, she had a gift
of tears at command. She had been brought up at a
Court where women were taught to use all such charms
to win men for political ends. The Escadron volant de la
Heine had not come into existence when Mary left
France, but its recruits were ready, and some of them
had been her companions. She had made it clearly
understood that she meant to overthrow the Reformation
in Scotland.^ Her unscrupulous character was already
known to Knox and the other Protestant leaders.
Nine days before her marriage she had signed deeds
guaranteeing the ancient liberties and independence of
^ The Works of John Knoo:, vi. 88, Knox to Gregory Railton (Oct.
23rd, 1559)..
■^ Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots,
i. 507, 536.
310 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
Scotland ; six days after her marriage she and her
husband had appended their signatures to the same
deeds ; but twenty days before her wedding she had
secretly signed away these very liberties, and had made
Scotland a mere appanage of France.^ They suspected
that the party in France whose figure-head she was,
would stick at no crime to carry out their designs, and
had shown what they were ready to do by poisoning
four of the Scotch Commissioners sent to Paris for their
young Queen's wedding, because they refused to allow
Francis to be immediately crowned King of Scotland.^
They knew how apt a pupil she had already shown
herself in their school, when she led her boy husband
and her ladies for a walk round the Castle of Amboise, to
see the bodies of dozens of Protestants hung from lintels
and turrets, and to contemplate " the fair clusters of
grapes which the grey stones had produced." ^
It was scarcely wonderful that Lord James, Morton,
and Lethington, were it not for obedience' sake, "cared not
thoughe theie never saw her face," and felt that there
was no safety for them but in Elizabeth's protection.
As for Knox, we are told : " Mr. Knox is determined to
abide the uttermost, and others will not leave him till
God have taken his life and theirs together."* What
use might she not make of these fascinations of hers on
the vain, turbulent nobles of Scotland ? Is it too much
to say that but for the passionate womanly impulse — so
like a Stuart^ — which made her fling herself first into
the arms of Darnley and then of Bothwell, and but for
^ Hay Fleming, Mary Queen of Scots (London, 1897), pp. 23, 24, and
210, 211.
2 Ibid. pp. 25, 212.
^ Mariejol, Histoire de France depuis les Origines jusqu'd la devolution,
VI. i. 18 (Paris, 1904).
^ Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots,
i. 543.
• " Das Leben geliebt und die Krone gekiisst,
Und den Franen das Herz gegeben,
Und zuletzt einen Kuss auf das bliit'ge Geriist—
Das ist eiu Stuartleben."
QUEEN MARY IN SCOTLAND 311
Knox, she might have succeeded in re-estabhshing Popery
in Scotland and in reducing Protestant England ?
Cecil himself was not without his fears, and urged the
Protestants in Scotland to stand firm. Eandolph's answer
shows how much he trusted Knox's tenacity, however much
he might sometimes deprecate his violence :
" Where your honour exhortethe us to stowteness, I
assure you the voyce of one man is hable in one hower to
put more lyf in us than five hundred trompettes contynu-
ally blusteringe in our eares." ^
He was able to write after Mary's arrival :
"She (Mary) was four days without Mass; the next
Sunday after arrival she had it said in her chapel by a
French priest. There were at it besides her uncles and her
own Household, the Earle of Montrose, Lord Graham . .
the rest were at Mr. Knox sermon, as great a number as
ever was any day." ^
Mary's advisers, her uncles, knew how dangerous the
state of Scotland was for their designs, and counselled her
to temporise and gradually win over the leading Reforming
nobles to her side. The young Queen entered on her
task with some zest. She insisted on having Mass for her
own household ; but she would maintain, she promised, the
laws which had made the Mass illegal in Scotlanci ; and it
says a great deal for her powers of fascination and dissimu-
lation that there was scarcely one of the Reforming nobles
that she did not win over to believe in her sincerity at one
time or another, and that even the sagacious Randolph
seemed for a time to credit that she meant what she said.^
Knox alone in Scotland read her character and paid unwill-
ing tribute to her abilities from his first interview with her.*
^ Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots,
i. 551.
^Ibid. i. 547.
^ That is the impression ^vhich his letters give me. Cf. Calendar, etc.
pp. 565-609.
* " If there be not in her a proud mind, a crafty wit, and an indurate heart
312 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
He saw that she had been thoroughly trained by het
uncles, and especially by the Cardinal of Lorraine, and that
it was hopless to expect anything like fair deahng from
her :
" In verry dead hir hole proceadings do declayr that the
Cardinalles lessons ar so deaplie prented in hir heart, that
the substance and the qualitie ar liek to ' perische together.
I wold be glaid to be deceaved, but I fear I shall not. In
communication with her, I espyed such craft as I have not
found in such aige." ^
Maitland of Lethington thought otherwise. Writing to
Cecil (Oct. 25th, 1561) he says:
" You know the vehemency of Mr. Knox spreit, which
cannot be brydled. ... I wold wishe he shold deale with
her more gently, being a young princess unpersitaded" ^
It was thought that Mary might be led to adopt the
Eeformation if she were only tenderly guided. When
Mary's private correspondence is read, when the secret
knowledge which her co-religionists abroad had of her designs
is studied and known, it can be seen how true was Knox's
reading of her character and of her intentions.^ He stood
firm, almost alone at times among the leading men, but
faithfully supported by the commons of Scotland.*
Then began the struggle between the fascinating Queen,
Mary Stuart, one of the fairest flowers of the French
Eenaissance, and the unbending preacher, trained in the
sternest school of the Eeformation movement — a struggle
which was so picturesque, in which the two opponents had
each such strongly marked individuality, and in which the
against God and His truth, my judgment faileth me" {The Works of John
Knox, etc. ii. 286).
^ The Works of John Knox, etc. vi. 132, Letter from Knox to Cecil (Oct.
7th, 1561).
2 Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots,
i. 565.
^ For summary of evidence, of. Hay Fleming, Mary Queen of Scots, pp.
267-68.
^ For summary of evidence, of. Hay Fleming, Mary Qiieen of Scots, pp.
51-53, 263.
AUTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 313
accessories were so dramatic, that the spectator insensibly
becomes aljsorbed in the personal side of the conflict, and
is tempted to forget that it was part of a E evolution which
was convulsing the whole of middle and western Europe.
A good deal has been written about the rudeness with
which Knox assailed Mary in public and in private, and
his conversations with her are continually referred to but
seldom quoted in full. It is forgotten that it was Mary
who wished to try her gifts of fascination on the preacher,
just as Catherine de' Medici tried to charm de Beze before
Poissy ; that Knox never sought an interview ; that he
never approached the Court unless he was summoned by
the sovereign to her presence ; that lie was deferential as a
subject should be ; and it was only when he was compelled
by Mary herself to speak on themes for which he was ready
to lay down his life that he displayed a sternness which
monarchs seldom experience in those to whom they give
audience. What makes these interviews stand forth in
history is that they exhibit the first clash of autocratic
kingship and the hitherto unknown power of the people.
It was an age in which sovereigns were everywhere gaining
despotic power, when the might of feudal barons was being
broken, when the commonalty was dumb. A young Queen,
whose training from childhood had stamped indelibly on
her character that kingship meant the possession of un-
limited autocratic privileges before which everything must
give way, who had seen that none in France had dared
dispute the will of her sickly, dull boy-husband simply
]:)ecause he was King, was suddenly confronted by something
above and beyond her comprehension :
" ' What have ye to do,' said sche, * with my mariage ?
Or what ar ye within this Commdunwealth ? ' 'A subject
borne within the sainc,' said he, * Madam. And albeit I neather
be Erie, Lord, nor Barroun within it, yitt hes God maid me
(how abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profitable member
within the same.' " ^
1 Th'^ Works of John K'nox, etc. ii. 388.
314 THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
Modern democracy came into being in that answer. It is
curious to see how this conflict between autocratic power
and the civil and religious rights of the people runs through
all the interviews between Mary and Knox, and was, in
truth, the question of questions between them.^
It is unnecessary to tell the story of the seven years
of struggle between 1560 and 1567. In the end, Mary
was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, deposed, and her
infant son, James vi., was placed on the throne. Lord
James Stewart, Earl of Moray, was made Eegent. The
Estates or Parliament again voted the Confession of Faith,
and engrossed it in their Acts. The Eegent, acting for the
sovereign, signed the Acts. The Confession thus became
part of the law of the land, and the Eeformed Church was
legally recognised in Scotland.
^ Accounts of the five interviews are to be found in The Works of John
Knox, etc. ii. 281/., 331/., 371/., 387/., 403/.
BOOK IV.
THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.*
The Chui'ch and people of England broke away from the
mediaeval papal ecclesiastical system in a manner so
exceptional, that the rupture had not very much in
^ Sources : Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana Mstoriam ecdesiasticam
Mjeculi 16 illustrantia (Freiburg, 1861); Letters and Papers, Foreign and
Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII. (19 vols., London, 1860-1903) ; Calendar
of Venetian State Papers, 1520-26, lo27-S3, 1534-54, 1555-56, 1557-58, 1558-
80 ; Calendar of Spanish State Papers (London, 1886) ; Furnivall, BaUadsfrofti
Manxtscripts {^a\\a.6i Society, London, 1868-72) ; Gee and Hardy, Docwnents
illustrative of English Church History (London, 1896) ; Erasmus, Opera
Omnia, ed. Le Clerc (Leyden, 1703-6) ; Nichols, The Epistles of Erasmus
from the earliest letters to his fifty-first year, ai'ranged in order of time
(London, 1901-4) ; Pocock, Records of the Reformation (Oxford, 1870) ;
Theiner, Vetera Monumenta Hibernorum et Scot&rum historiam illustrantia
(Rome, 1864) ; Wilkins, Concilia; Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London,
(Camden Society, London, 1846); Holinshed, Chronicles {lioxvdon, 1809);
Loudon Chronicle in the times of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. {Camden
Miscellany, vol, iv., London, 1859) ; Wright, Suppression of the Mo (istcHes
(Camden Society, London, 1843) ; Foxe, Acts and Monuments (London,
1846) ; Ehses, Romischc Dokumente zur Geschichte desHeinrichs VIII. von
England, 1527-34 (Paderborn, 1893); Zurich Letters, 2 vols. (Parker
Society, Cambridge, 1846-47) ; Works of Archbishop Cranmer, 2 vols. (Parker
Society, Cambridge, 1844-46).
Later Books : Dixon, History of the ChurcK of England (London, 1878,
etc.); Froude, History of England (London, 1856-70; by no means
superseded, as many would have us believe) ; Brewer, The Reign of Henry
VIII. (London, 1884) ; Gairdner, The English Church in the Six'^nth
315
316 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
common with the contemporary movements in France and
Germany. Henry viii. destroyed the papal supremacy,
spiritual and temporal, within the land which he governed ;
he cut the bands which united the Church of England
with the great Western Church ruled over by the Bishop
of Rome ; he built up what may be called a kingly papacy
on the ruins of the jurisdiction of the Pope. His starting-
point was a quarrel with the Pope, who refused to divorce
him from Catharine of Aragon.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that Henry's
eagerness to be divorced from Catharine accounts for the
English Reformation. No king, however despotic, could
liave forced on such a revolution unless there was much
in the life of the people that reconciled them to the change,
and evidence of this is abundantly forthcoming.
There was a good deal of heresy, so called, in England
long before Luther's voice had been heard in Germany.
Men maintained that the tithes were exactions of covetous
priests, and were not sanctioned by the law of God ; they
protested against the hierarchical constitution of the
mediffival Church ; they read the Scriptures, and attended
services in the vernacular; and they scoffed at the
authority of the Church and attacked some of its doctrines.
Lollardy had never died out in England, and Lollardy was
simply the English form of that passive protest against the
mediaeval Church which under various names had main-
tained itself in France, Germany, and Bohemia for centuries
in spite of persecution. Foxe's Acts and Monuments show
that there was a fairly active repression of so-called heresy
in England before Luther's days, and his accounts are
confirmed by the State Papers of the period. In 1511,
Andreas Ammonius, the Latin secretary of Henry viii.,
writing to Erasmus, says that wood has grown scarce and
dear because so much was needed to burn heretics, " and
Century (London, 1902) ; Pollard, Henry VIII. (London, 1905), Thomas
Cranmer (Heroes of the Reformation Series, New York and London, 1904) ;
Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Mediceval and Modern Histoi^f,
Lectures XL and XIL (Oxford, 1900) ; Camhridje Modern History, ii xiii.
LOLLARDY 317
yet their numbers grow." Yet Dr. James Gairdner declares
that only a solitary pair had suffered during that year at
the stake ! ^ Early in 1512 the Archbishop of Canterbury
summoned a meeting of convocation for the express
purpose of arresting the spread of heresy ; ^ in that same year
Erasmus was told by More that the Epistolce Qhscuroruni
Virorum were popular everywhere throughout England ; ^
and a commission was given to the Bishop of Coventry and
others to inquire about Lollards in Wales and other parts ; *
and as late as 1521 the Bishop of London arrested five
hundred Lollards.^ In 1530, Henry viii. himself, always
curious about theology and anxious to know about the books
which interested his subjects, sent to Oxford for a copy
of the Articles on which Wiclif had been condemned.^
Anyone who scoffed at relics or pilgrimages was thought to
be a Wiclifite.^ In 1531, divinity students were required to
take an oath to renounce the doctrines of Wiclif, Hus, and
Luther;^ and in 1533, More, writing to Erasmus, calls
Tyndale and his sympathisers Wiclifites.^ Henry viii. was
engaged as early as 1518 in composing a book against
heresy and vindicating the claims of the lionian See, which
in its first inception could scarcely be directed against
Luther, and probably dealt with the views of home heretics.^^
Some modern historians are inclined to find a strong
^ Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of llenry VIII.
i. p. 295. There was a sudden rise in the price of ■wood all over Europe
about that date, and it is alleged to be one of the causes why the poorer
classes in Germany were obliged to give up the earlier almost universal use
of the steam bath. In the fifteenth century, masters gave their workmen not
Trinkgelt, but Badgclt. Nichols, The Epistles of Erasmus, i. 40.
2 Letters and Papers, etc. i. p. 633.
8 Ibid. II. i. 777 : The Oxford bookseller (1520) John Dome had two
copies in his stock of books [Oxford Historical Society, Collectanea (Oxford,
1885), p. 155].
* Letters and Papers, i. p. 373.
'* Jacobs, The Lutheran Movement in England, p. 3.
» Bale, Select Works, p. 171.
■^ Erasmi Colloquia (Amsterdam, 1662), Peregrinatio Religionis ergo
p. 376 ; Viclevita quispiam, opinor.
^ Letters and Papers, etc. v. p. 140.
8 Ibid. vi. p. 144. -^ Ibid. ii. ii. p. 1319.
318 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
English revolt against Eome native to the soil and borrow-
ing little or nothing from Luther, which they believe to
have been the initial force at work in shaping the English
Eeformation. Mr. Pollard points out that in many
particulars this Eeformation followed the lines laid down
by Wiclif. Its leaders, like Wiclif, denounced the
Papal Supremacy on the ground of the political injury it
did to the English people ; declaimed against the sloth,
/ immorality, and wealth of the English ecclesiastics ;
advocated a preaching ministry ; and looked to the secular
power to restrain the vices and reform the manners of the
clergy, and to govern the Church. He shows that
"most of the English Eeformers were acquainted with
Wycliffe's works : Cranmer declares that he set forth the
truth of the Gospel ; Hooper recalls how he resisted ' the
popish doctrine of the Mass'; Eidley, how he denied tran-
substantiation ; and Bale, how he denounced the friars. . . .
Bale records with triumph that, in spite of the efforts to
suppress (the writings of Wiclifte), not one had utterly
perished." ^
And Dr. Eashdall goes the length of saying :
"It is certain that the Eeformation had virtually broken
out in the secret Bible-readiitgs of the Cambridge Eeformers
before either the trumpet-call of Luther or the exigencies
of Henry viii.'s personal and political position set men free
once more to talk openly against the Pope and the monks,
and to teach a simpler and more spiritual gospel than the
system against which Wycliffe had striven." ^
Even if it be admitted that these statements are
somewhat strong, they at least call attention to the fact of
the vigorous Lollard leaven which permeated the English
people, and are a very necessary corrective of the mislead-
ing assertions of Dr. James Gairdner on the matter.
Henry viii. had other popular forces behind him — the
^ Thcymas Cranmer and the English Reformation (New York and LomJoii,
1904), p. 91.
- Dictionary of Kniional Biography, art. " Wycliffe," Ixiii. 218.
THE CHRISTIAN HUMANISTS 319
rooted dislike to the clergy which characterised a large
mass of the people, the effects of the teaching of the /
Christian Humanists of England, and the spread of Lutheran
opinions throughout the land.
The Bishop of London, writing to Wolsey about the
proposal to try his Chancellor, Dr. Horsey, for complicity
in the supposed murder of Kichard Hunne; declared that
if the Chancellor
" be tried by any twelve men in London, they be so malici-
ously set infavorejii hcereticce pravitatis that they will cast
and condemn any clerk though he were as innocent as
Abel."i
/
This dislike was not confined to the capital. The Par-
liaments showed themselves anti-clerical long before Henry
had thrown off his allegiance to Eome ; ^ and Englishmen
could find no better term of insult to throw at the Scots
than to call them " Pope's men." ^
Nor should the work of the Christian Humanists be
forgotten. The double tendency in their longings' for a
reformation of the abuses of superstition, of pilgrimages,
of relic-worship, etc., may be seen in the lives of Sir
Thomas More and of William Tyndale. When the former
saw that reform meant the breaking up of the mediaeval
Church, he became more and more conservative. But
More in 1520 (Feb. 28th) could write to Lea that if the
Pope (Leo x.) should withdraw his approval of Erasmus'
Greek New Testament, Luther's attacks on the Holy See
were piety itself compared vrith such a deed.* Tyndale,
the favourite pupil of Dean Colet, on the other hand,
went forward and earned the martyr's crown. . These
Christian Humanists had expected much from Henry viii.,
whom they looked on as imbued with the New Learning ;
and in the end perhaps they were not altogether mistaken.
If the Bishops Book and the Kings Booh be studied, it will
^ Letters and Papers, etc. ii. i. p. 1.
^ Ibid., etc. I. p. 961, ii. i. pp. 350, 354, 355.
3 Ibid. I. p. 379. •» Ibid. in. p. 215.
320 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
be seen that in both what is insisted upon is a reformation
of conduct and a study of the Bible — quite in the spirit of
Cplet and of Erasmus.
si The writings of Luther found early entrance into
England, and were read by King ^ and people. A long list
of them, including six copies of his work De potestate Papce,
is to be found in the stock of the Oxford bookseller, John
Dome 2 (1520). Erasmus, writing to Oecolampadius (May
15th, 1521), declares that there are many of Luther's books
in England, and hints that but for his exertions they would
have been burnt.^ That was before Luther's official con-
demnation. On May 28th, Silvester, Bishop of Worcester,
wrote to Wolsey from Kome announcing that the Cardinals
had agreed to declare Martin a heretic, and that a Bull was
being prepared on the subject.* The Bull itself appeared
in Eome on the 15th of June; and thereafter our informa-
tion about Luther's writings in England comes from
evidence of endeavours to destroy them. Warham, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Wolsey (March 8 th,
1521) that he had received letters from Oxford which
declared that the University was infected with Lutheranism,
and that the forbidden books were in circulation there.^
Indeed, most of the canons appointed to Wolsey's new
foundation of the Cardinal College were suspect. Cambridge
was as bad, if not worse. Members of the University met
at the White Horse Tavern to read and discuss Luther's
writings ; the inn was called " Germany," and those who
frequented it " the Germans." Pope Leo urged both the
King and Wolsey to prevent the circulation of Lutheran
literature ; and they did their best to obey. We read that
on May 12th, 1521, Wolsey went in great state to St.
Paul'^, and after various ceremonies mounted a scaffold,
seated himself " under a cloth of estate," and listened to a
sermon preached by Bishop Fisher against Lutheran errors.
^ Letters and Pajjers, etc. iii. p. 467.
" Oxford Historical Society, Collectanea (Oxford, 1885), p. 164.
2 Letters and Papers, etc. ill. p. 284. ** Ihid. etc. III. i. p. 293.
^ Ibid. III. p. 449.
Luther's writings 321
At his feet on the right side sat the Pope's ambassadors
and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and on the left side
the imperial ambassadors and the Bishop of Durham.
While the sermon was being preached, numbers of Lutheran
books were burnt in a huge' bonfire kindled hard by in
St. Paul's Churchyard.^ The representatives of Pope and
Emperor saw it all, and doubtless reported to their respect-
ive Courts that Wolsey was doing his duty by Church and
Empire. It may be doubted whether such theatrical
exhibitions hindered the spread of Luther's books in
England or prevented them being read.
All these things indicated a certain preparedness in
England for the Eeformation, and all meant that there was
a strong national force behind Henry viii. when he at last
made up his mind to defy Eome.
Nor was a national separation from Eome so formid-
able an affair as Dr. Gairdner would have us believe. The
Papacy had secularised itself, and European monarchs were
accustomed to treat the Popes as secular princes. The
possibility of England breaking away from papal authority
and erecting itself into a separate patriarchate under the
Archbishop of Canterbury had been thought probable
before the divorce was talked about.^
It was Henry himself who clung strenuously to the
conception of papal supremacy, and who advocated it in a
manner only done hitherto by canonists of the Eoman
Curia. Whatever be the secret reason which he gave to Sir
Thomas More, and which silenced the latter s remonstrances,
it is evident that the validity of Henry's marriage and the
legitimacy of his children by Catharine of Aragon depended
on the Pope being in possession of the very fullest powers
of dispensation. Henry had been married to Catliarine
under very peculiar circumstances, which might well
^ Letters and Papers, etc. III. i. p. 485.
"Ibid. IV., Preface, p. 170: "Some are of opinion that it (the Holy
See) should not continue in Rome, lest the French King should make a
patriarch in his kingdom and deny obedience to the said See, and the King
of England and all other Christian princes do the same."
21**
322 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
suggest doubts about the validity of the marriage
ceremony.
The England of Henry vii. was almost as much a
satellite of Spain as Scotland, was of France, and to make
the alliance still stronger a marriage was arranged between
Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catharine the youngest of
the three daughters of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.
The Spanish Princess landed at Plymouth (October 2nd,
1501), and the wedding took place in St. Paul's on Novem-
ber 14th. But Prince Arthur died a few months afterwards
(April 2nd, 1502), and Catharine became a widow. The
circumstances of the two nations appeared to require more
than ever the cementing of the alliance by intermarriage,
and it w^as proposed from the side of Spain that the young
widow should marry Henry, her brother-in-law, now Prince
of Wales.^ Ferdinand brought pressure to bear on
England by insisting that if this were not done Catharine
should be sent back to Spain and the first instalment of
her dowry (all that had been paid) returned. The two
Kings then besieged the Pope, Julius ii., to grant a dis-
pensation for the marriage. At first His Holiness was
very unwilling to consent. Such a marriage had been
branded as sin by canonical law, and the Pope himself had
great doubts whether it was competent fo'l* him to grant a
dispensation in such a case.^ In the end he was persuaded
to give it. The two young people had their own scruples
of conscience. Ferdinand felt called upon to reason with
his proposed son-in-law.^ The confessor of his daughter
was changed.* The Archbishop of Canterbury, who
doubted whether the Pope could grant dispensation for
what was a mortal sin in his eyes, was silenced.^ The
wedding took place (June 11th, 1509).
^ Spanish Calendar, i. 267.
- Pocock's Records of the Heformation, i. 1 ; Letters and Tapers, etc. iv.
iii. p. 2576.
^ Calendar of Spanish State Papers, ii. 8.
^ Ibid., Preface, xiii.
^ Letters and Papers, etc. iv. iii. p. 2579. A General Council had pro-
nounced against such a d'spfusttion ; ibid. iv. iii. p. 2365.
HENRY VIII. AND CATHARINE OF ARAGON 323
The marriage was in one sen^e singularly unfortunate.
The first four children were either stillborn or died soon
after birth ; end it was rumoured in Eome as early as
1514. that Henry might ask to be divorced in order to
save England from a disputed succession. Mary was born
in 1516 and survived, but all the children who came
afterwards were either stillborn or died in early infancy.
It became evident by 1525 that if Henry did not divorce
his wife he would have no male heir.
There is no doubt that the lack of a male heir troubled
Henry greatly. The English people had not been accus-
tomed to a female sovereign ; it was currently, if errone-
ously, reported in England that the laws of the land, did
not permit a woman to be sovereign, and such well-
informed diplomatists as the Venetian Ambassadors believed
the statement ; ^ and the Tudor dynasty was not so firmly
settled on the throne that it could afford to look forward
to a disputed succession. The King's first idea was to ask
the Pope to legitimise his illegitimate son the Duke of
Eichmond ; ^ and Cardinal Campeggio actually suggested
that the Princess Mary should be married to her half-
brother.^ These projects came to an end with the death
of the young Prince.
There seems to be no reason for questioning the
sincerity of Henry's doubts about the legitimacy of his
marriage with Catharine, or that he actually lobked upon
the repeated destruction of his hopes of a male heir as a
divine punishment for the sin of that contract.* Questions
of national policy and impulses of passion quicken marvel-
lously conscientious convictions, but they do not show that
the convictions are not real. In the perplexities of his
position the shortest way out seemed to be to ask the
Pope to declare that he had neyer been legally married to
1 Calendar of Venetian State Papers, 1527-3S, p. 300.
^Letters and Papers, etc. iv. ii. p. 1369 ;' Calendar of Spanish State
Papers, in. ii. 482, 109.
^ Ibid. etc. IV. ii. p. 2113; La}inmer, Monxnnrnta Vaticana, p. 29.
< Ibid. etc. IV. iii. p. 2-261.
324 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
Catharine. If he had scruples of conscience about his
marriage with his brother's widow, this would end them ;
if the fears of a disputed succession haunted him, he could
marry again, and might hope for a son and a lawfuJ heir
whose succession none would dispute. Cardinal Wolsey
adopted his master's plans, and the Pope was to be asked
for a declaration that the marriage with Catharine had
been no marriage at all.
There entered, however, into all this, at what time it is
not easy to determine, an element of sordidness which
goes ill with asserted scruples of conscience and imperious
necessities of State. Wolsey was astonished when he
learned that Henry had made up his mind to marry Anne
Boleyn, a lady whose station in life and personal reputation
untitted her for the position of Queen of England. It was
Henry's inordinate, if not very long-lived, passion for this
lady that put him in the wrong, and enabled the Pope to
pose as the guardian of the public morality of Europe.
It is plain that Henry viii. fully expected that the
Pope would declare his first marriage invalid ; there was
many a precedent for such action — two in Henry's own "
family ; ^ and the delay had nothing to do with the
interests of public morality. The Pope was at the time
practically in the power of Charles v., to whom his aunt,
the injured Catharine, had appealed, and who had promised
her his protection. One has only to study the phases of
the protracted proceedings in the " Divorce " and compare
them with the contemporary situation in Italy to see that
all that the Curia cared for was the success of the papal
. diplomacy in the Italian peninsula. The interests of
morality were so little in his mind that Clement proposed
to Henry more than once that the King might take a
second wife without going through the formality of having
his first marriage declared null and void.^ This had been
' For the case of Mary Tudor, cf. Letters aiid Papers, etc. iv. iii. p.
2619, cf. IV. i. p. 325 ; and for that of Margaret Tudor, widow of Jamea
IV., cf. IV. ii. p. 1826.
- Letters and Papers, etc. iv. iii. pp. 2987, 3023, 3189.
FALL OF WOLSEY 325
the papal solution of the matter in an earlier instance, and
Clement vii. saw no reasons why what had been allowed
to a King of Spain should be denied to the King of
England.^ He was prepared to tolerate bigamy, but not
to thwart Charles, so long as the Emperor was master
within Italy.2
It is needless to follow the intricacies of the Divorce.
The protracted proceedings were an object lesson for
English statesmen. They saw a grave moral question —
whether a man could lawfully marry his deceased brother's
widow ; a matter vitally affecting the welfare of the
English people — the possibility of a disputed succession ;
the personal wishes of a powerful, strong-willed, and
choleric sovereign (for all considerations were present,
not only the last) — all subjected to the shifting needs of a
petty Italian prince. So far as England was concerned,
the grave interest in the case ended when Campeggio
adjourned the inquiry (July 2 3rd, 1 5 2 9 ). Henry knew that
he could not expect the Pope to give him what he wanted ;
and although his -agents fought the case at Rome, he
at once began pteparing for the separation from papal
jurisdiction.
The English nobles, who had long chafed under the
rule of Wolsey, took advantage of the great Minister's
failure in the Divorce negotiations to press forward his
downfall. He was deprived of the Lord Chancellorship,
which was given to Sir Thomas More, and was further
indicted before the King's Bench for infringement of the
law of Frcemunire — an accusation to which- he pleaded
guilty.^
Meanwhile Henry had taken measures to summon a
Parliament ; and in the interval between, summons and
^ Calendar of Spanish State Papers, ii. 379.
2 Letters and Papers, etc. iv. iii. pp. 2047, 2055.
^ The two statutes of Praemunire (1353, 1393) will be found in Gee and
Hardy, Documents ilhistraf.ive of English Church History (London, 1896),
pp. 103, 122.. They forbid subjects taking plaints cognisable in the King's
courts to courts outside the realm, and the second statute makes pointed
reference to the papal courts.
326 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
assembly, it had been suggested to bim that Cranmer was
of opinion that the best way to deal with the Divorce was
to take it out of the hands of the Curia and consult the
/ canonists of the various Universities of Europe. Cranmer
was instructed to prepare the case to be laid before them.
This was done so successfully that the two great English
Universities, the French Universities of Paris, Orleans,
Bourges, and Toulouse, decided that the King's marriage
with Catharine was not valid ; the Italian Universities of
Ferrara, Padua, Pavia, and Bologna came to the same
conclusion in spite of a proclamation issued by the Pope
prohibiting all doctors from maintaining the invalid nature
of the King's marriage.^
Parliament met on November 3rd, 1529, and, from the
matters brought before it, received the name of the
"Parliament for the enormities of the clergy." ^ It revealed
the force of lay opinion on which Henry might count in
the struggle he was about to begin with the clergy. With
a view of strengthening his hands still further, the King
summoned an assembly of Notables,^ which met on June
12th, 1530, and addressed the Pope in a letter in which
they prayed him to consent' to the King's desire, pointed
. out the evils which would follow from delaying the Divorce,
and hinted that they might be compelled to take the
matter into their own hands. This seems to have been
the general feeling among the laity of England ; for a
foreigner writing to the Eepublic of Florence says : " No-
thing else is thought of in that island every day, except of
arranging affairs in such a way that they do no longer be
in want of the Pope, neither for filling vacancies in the
Church, nor for any other purpose."*
* Paris and Orleans, Letters and Papers^ etc. iv. iii. p. 2845 ; Bourges
and Bologna, ibid. iv. iii. p. 2895 ; Padua, ibid. iv. iii. pp. 2921,
2923 (it is said that the Lutherans in the city strongly opposed the King) ;
Pavia, ibid. iv. iii. p. 2988 ; Ferrara, ibid. iv. iii. 2990.
2 A list of the matters to be brought before this Parliament is given in
Letters and Papers, etc. iv. iii. pp. 2689^.
8 Ibid. IV. iii. pp. 2929, 2991.
^ Ibid. IV. iii. p. 3661 (December 25th, 1530).
SUBMISSION OF THE CLERGY 327
Having made himself sure of the great mass of the /
laity, Henry next set himself to force the clergy into
submission." He suddenly charged them all with being
guilty of Prccmunire because they had accepted the
authority of Papal Legates within the kingdom ; and
managed to extort a suln of £100,000, to be paid in
five yearly instalments, by way of a fine from the clergy
of the Province of Canterbury.^ At the same meeting of
Convocation (1531) the clergy were compelled, under
threat of the law of Prcemunire, to declare that the King
was " their singular protector and only supreme lord, and,
as far as that is permitted by the laiu of Christ, the Supreme
Head of the Church and of the clergy." The ambiguity
in the acknowledgment left a loophole for weak consciences ;
but the King was satisfied with the phrase, feeling confident
that he could force his own interpretation of the acknow-
ledgment on the Church. " It is all the same," Charles v.'s
ambassador wrote to his master, " as far as the King
is concerned, as if they had made no reservation ; - for no
one now will be so bold as to contest with his lord the
importance of this reservation."^
This acknowledgment was, according to the King, simply
a clearer statement of what was contained in the old
statutes of Prcemunire, and in all his subsequent
ecclesiastical legislation he claimed that he ^ was only
giving effect to the earlier laws of England.
The Parliament of 1532 gave the King important
assistance in forcing on the submission, not only of the
clergy of England, but of the Pope, to his wishes. The
Commons presented a petition complaining of various
grievances affecting the laity in the working of the
ecclesiastical courts, which was sent with a set of demands
from the King to the Convocation. The result was the
important resolution of Convocation (May 15th, 1532)
which is called the Suhmission of the Clergy, where it is
^ Letters and Papers, etc. v. 71.
2 Ibid. etc. V. p. 47. Chapuys thouglit that the declaration made the
King " Pope of England."
328 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
promised not to make any new canons without the King's
licence and ratification, and to submit all previous canons
to a committee of revision, to consist of thirty- two persons,
sixteen from Parliament and sixteen from the clergy, and
all to be chosen by the King. This committee was to
expunge all containing anything prejudicial to the King's
prerogative. This Act of Convocation practically declared
that the Church of England could neither make any rules
for its own guidance without the King's permission, nor act
v' according to the common law of the mediaeval Church
when that, in the King's opinion, invaded the royal
prerogative.^ From this Act the Church of England has
never been able to free itself. The other deed of this
Parliament which was destined to be of the greatest use to
Henry in his dealings with the Pope was an Act dealing
with the annates, i.e. one year's income from all ecclesiastical
benefices paid to the Pope on entrance into any benefice.
The Act declared that the annates should be withheld
from the Pope and given to the King, but permitted His
Majesty to suspend its operation so long as it pleased
him.^ It was the suspensory clause which enabled Henry
to coerce the Pope, and he was not slow to take advantage
of it.3 Writing to Eome (March 21st, 1532), he said:
" The Pope and Cardinals may gain our friendship by truth
and justice. Take care that they do not hope or despair
too much from this power which has been committed to us
by the statute. I do not mean to deceive them, but to
tell them the fact that this statute will be to their ad-
vantage, if they show themselves deserving of it ; if not,
otherwise. Nothing has been defined at present, which
must be to their advantage if they do not despise my
friendship." *
^ Cf. Gee and Hardy, Documents illustrative of the History of the English
Church, p. 176. Chapuys declares that " Churchmen will be of less account
than shoemakers, who have the power of assembling and making their own
statutes " {Letters and Papers, etc. v. 467 ; cf. vi. 121).
2 Ibid. p. 178 ; the suspensory clause is on p. 184, Letters and Papers,
etc. V. pp. 343, 413.
3 Ibid. etc. V. p. 71. ■* Ibid. etc. v. p. 415»
CRANMER MADE ARCHBISHOP 329
Archbishop Warham, who had presided at the Convo-
cation which made the submission of the clergy, died in
August 1532; and Henry resolved that Cranmer, not-
withstanding his unwilHngness, should succeed him as
Archbisljfjp of Canterbury. Cranmer conscientiously
believed that the royal supremacy was a good thing, and
would cure many of the ecclesiastical evils which no
appeals to the Pope seemed able to reform ; and he was
also convinced that the marriage of Henry with Catharine
had l)een one for which not even the highest ecclesiastical
authority could give a dispensation. He was prepared to
carry out the King's wishes in both respects. He could
not be an acceptable Primatfe to the Eoman Curia. Yet
Henry, by threatening the Pope with the loss of the
annates, actually compelled him to send Bulls to England,
and that with unusual speed, ratifying the appointment to
the Primacy of a man who was known to believe in the
nullity of the King's marriage, and to be ready to give
effect to his opinion ; and this at a time when the Parlia-
ment of England had declared that the Primate's court
was the supreme ecclesiastical tribunal for the English
Church and people. The deed made the Curia really
responsible for almost all that followed in England. For
Parliament in February 1533, acting on the submission of
the clergy, had passed an Act prohibiting all appeals to
Eome from the Archbishop's court, and ordering that, if
any appeals were taken, they must be to the King's Court
of Chancery. This was the celebrated Act of Restraint
of Appeals.^
In the beginning of 1533 (Jan. 25th), Henry viii.
was privately married to Anne Boleyn. He had taken
the Pope's advice in this one particular, to get married
without waiting for the Divorce; but soon afterwards
(April 5 th) he got from the Convocation of Canterbury a
document declaring that- the Pope had no power to grant
a dispensation in such a case as the marriage of Henry
1 Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 195 ; the important clause is on
p. 198.
330 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
with Catharine ; ^ and the Act of Eestraint of Appeals had
made such a decision practically final so far as England
was concerned.
Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on
March 30th, 1533. His opinions were known. He had
been one of the Cambridge " Germans " ; he had freely con-
sorted with Lutheran divines in Germany ; he had begun
to pray in private for the abolition of the Pope's power in
England as early as 1525 ; and it was not without reason
that Chapuys called him a " Lutheran." ^
On April 11th, 1533, the new Primate asked the King
to permit him to try the question of the Divorce before
his own ecclesiastical court ; and leave was granted him on
the following day, as the principal minister " of our
spiritual jurisdiction." ^ The trial was begun, and the court,
acting on the decisions of Convocation two months earlier,
which had declared (1) that no dispensation could be given
for a marriage with the widow of a brother provided the
marriage had been consummated, and (2) that the marriage
between Arthur and Catharine had been consummated,
pronounced that the marriage between the King and
Catharine of Aragon was - null and void.* This was
followed by an inquiry about the marriage between the
King and Anne Boleyn, which was pronounced valid, and
preparations were made for the coronation of Queen Anne,
which took place ^on June 1st, 1533.^
This act of defiance to Eome was at once resented by
the Pope. The Curia declared that the marriage between
Henry and Catharine was lawful, and a Bull was issued
commanding Henry to restore Catharine and put away
Anne within ten days on pain of excommunication ; which
sentence the Emperor, all Christian Princes, and Henry's
own subjects were called upon to execute by force of arms.^
The action at Eome was answered from England oy
^ Letters and Papers, etc. VI. pp. 145, 148 ; cf. 218.
2 Ibid. etc. VI. p. 35. 3 75^-^ yj^ p ;i53_
* Ibid. VI. p. 231. » Ibid. VI. p. 246.
« Ibid. VI. p. 413.
SEPARATION FROM ROME 331
the passing of several strong Acts of Parliament — all in
1534. They completed the separation of the Church and
people of England from the See of Eome.
1. The Act forbidding the payment of annates to the
Pope was again introduced, and this time made absolute ;
no annates were for the future to be sent to Eome as the
first-fruits of any benefice. In the same Act new pro-
visions were made for the appointment of Bishops ; they
were for the future to be elected by the Deans and Chapters
on receiving a royal letter of leave and nomination.^
2. An Act forbidding the payment of Peter's Pence
to the Bishop of Eome ; forbidding all application to the
Pope for dispensations ; and declaring that all such dis-
pensations were to be sought for in the ecclesiastical
courts within England.^
3. The Act of Succession, which was followed by a
second within the same year in . which the nullity of the
marriage of Henry with Catharine of Aragon was clearly
stated, and Catharine was declared to be the " Princess of
Wales," i.e. the widow of Arthur ; which affirms the
validity of the King's maft-iage with Anne Boleyn, and
declares that all the issue of that marriage are legitimate ;
and which affirms that, failing male succession, the crown
falls to the Princess Ehzabeth.^
4. The Supremacy Act, which declares that the King
is rightfully the Supreme Head of the Ohurch of England,
has been recognised as such by Convocation, and that it is
within his powers to make ecclesiastical visitations and to
redress ecclesiastical abuses.*
5. The Treasons Act must also be included, inasmuch
as one of its provisions is that it is treason to deny to the
King any of his lawful titles (the Supreme Head of the
Church of England being one); and that treason includes
calling the King a heretic or a schismatic.^ '
^ Gee and Hardy, Do(yiimcnts ilhistrative of the History of the English
Church, p. .201.
2 Ibid. p. 209. 3 2l>i(l. pp. 2:V2, 244.
* Ibid. p. 243. ^ ibid. p. 247.
y
t
332 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
To complete the list, it is necessary to mention that
the two Convocations of Canterbury and of York solemnly
declared that " the Eoman Pontiff had no greater juris-
diction bestowed on him by God in the Holy Scriptures
than any other foreign {externiis) Bishop " — a declaration
called the Abjuration of the Pa^al Supremacy hy the
Clergy}
This separation of the Church of England from Rome
really meant that instead of there being a dual control,
there was to be a single one only. The Kings of England
had always claimed to have some control over the Church
of their realm ; Henry went further, and insisted that he
would share that supervision with no one. But it should
be noticed that what he did claim was, to use the terms of
canon law, the potestas jurisdictionis, not the potestas ordinis ;
; he never asserted his right to ordain or to control the
I sacraments. Nor was there at first any change in defini-
|tion of doctrines. The Church of England i-emained what
/fit had been in every respect, with the exception that the
^ Bishop of Rome was no longer ;recognised as the Kpiscopus
\ Universalis, and that, if appeals were necessary from the
^ highest ecclesiastical courts in England, they were not to
i be taken as formerly to Rome, but were to be settled in the
King's courts within the land of England. The power of
jurisdiction over the affairs of the Church could scarcely
be exercised by the King personally. Appeals could be
settled by his judges in the law courts, but he required a
substitute to exercise his power of visitation. This duty
was given to Thomas Cromwell, who was made Vicar-
General,^ and the office to some small extent may be said
to resemble that of the Papal Legate ; he represented the
King as the Legate had represented the Pope.
It was impossible, however, for the Church of England
to maintain exactly the p^.ace which it had occupied.
There was some stirring of Reformation life in the land.
Cranmer had been early Attracted by the writings of
Luther ; Thomas Cromwel' was not unsympathetic, and,
^ Gee and Hardy, Documcnh. etc. p. 251. - Ibid. p. 256.
THE TEN ARTICLES 335
besides, he had the idea that there would be some adva them
gained politically by an approach to the German His
lestants. There was soon talk about a set of Arti to
which would express the doctrinal beliefs of the Church on
England. It was, however, no easy matter to draft thjiat
While Cranmer, Cromwell, and such new Bishopphest
Latimer, had decided leanings towards the theolog^^om-
the Eeformation, the older Bishops held strongly byents
niediceval doctrines. The result was that, after prolon^es,
consultations, little progress was made, and very vary live
doctrines seem to have been taught, all of which tendeo?
to dispeace. In the end, the King himself, to use his own
words, " was constrained to put his own pen to the book,
and conceive certain articles which were agreed upon by
Convocation as catholic and meet to be set forth by
authority."^ They were published in 1536 under the
title, Articles devised by the Kyng's Highnes Majestie to
stahlysh Christen quietnes, and were ordered to be read
" plainly " in the churches.- They came to be called the
Te7i Articles, the first doctrinal symbol of the. Church of
England.
According to the preface, they were meant to secure,
by royal authority, unity and concord in religious beliefs,
and to repress and utterly extinguish all dissent and discord.
Foxe the Martyrologist describes them' very accurately as
meant for " weaklings newly weaned from their ' mother's
milk of Eome." Five deal with doctrines and five witli
ceremonies. The Bible, the Three Creeds (Apostles',
Nicene, and Athanasian), and the doctrinal . decisions of
the first four (Ecumenical Councils, are to be regarded as
the standards of orthodoxy ; .baptism is necessary for j
salvation — children dying in infancy " shall undoubtedly \
be saved thereby, and else not " ; : the Sacrament of Penance
is retained with confession and absolution, which are de-
clared to be expedient and necessary ^/ the substantial,
real, corporeal Presence of Christ's Body and Blood under
the form of Bread and Wine in the Eucharist is taught ;
^ Letters and Papers, etc. xr. p. 445. -^ Ibid. xi. pp. 30, 445.
332 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
rp, as well as charity is necessary to salvation ; images
the t ^^ remain in the churches ; the saints and the Blessed
(jgQJfgin are to he reverenced as intercessors ; the saints are
jj(3|-he invoked ; certain rites and ceremonies, such as clerical
^j^g^jjtments, sprinkling with holy water, carrying candles on
(jg^^lg^dlemas Day, and sprinkling ashes on Ash-Wednesday,
^^g^.^good and laudable j^ the doctrines of Purgatory and of
yers for the dead were not denied, but people were
\l reaP^^^^ about them. It should be noticed that while the
l^j^p fee Sacraments of Baptism, the Eucharist, and Penance
}ij,re retained, no mention is made of the other four, and
•that this is not unlike what Luther taught in the Babylonian
Captivity of the Church of Christ ; that while the Eeal
Presence is maintained, nothing is said about Transub-
j stantiation ; that while images are retained in churches,
' all incensing, kneeling, or offering to images is forbidden ;
that while saints and the Virgin may be invoked as inter-
cessors, it is said that it is a vain superstition to believe
that any saint can be more merciful than Christ Himself ;
and that the whole doctrine of Attrition and Indulgences
is paralysed by the statement that amendment of life is a
necessary part of Penance.
It is only when these Articles are read along with the
ilnjunctions issued in 1536 and 1538 that it can be fully
seen how much they were meant to wean the people, if
gradually, from the gross superstition which disgraced the
popular mediaeval religion. If this be done, they seem
an attempt to fulfil the aspirations of Christian Humanists
like Dean Colet and Erasmus.
After warning the clergy to observe all the laws made
for the abolition of the papal supremacy, all those insisting
on the supremacy of the King as the " supreme Head of
the Church of England," and to preach against the Pope's
usurped power within the realm of England, the Injunctions
proceed to say that the clergy are to expound the Ten
Articles to their people. In doing so they are to explain
why superfluous holy days ought not to be observed ; they
are to exhort their people against such superstitions as
. THE TEN ARTICLES 335
images, relics, and priestly miracles. They are to tell them
that it is best to keep God's commandments, to fulfil His
works of charity, to provide for their families, and to
bestow upon the poor the money they often lavish on
pilgrimages, images, and relics. They are to see that
parents and teachers instruct children from their earliest
years in the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Com-
mandments. They are to be careful that the sacraments
are duly and reverently administered within their parishes,
are to set an example of moral living, and are to give
themselves to the study of the Scriptures. The second
set of Injunctions (1538) goes further. The clergy are
told to provide " one whole Bible of the largest volume in
English," which is to be set somewhere in the church
where the parishioners can most easily read it ; and they
are to beware of discouraging any man from perusing it,
" for it is the lively word of God that every Christian man
is bound to embrace and follow." They are to preach
a sermon at least every quarter, in which they are to
declare the very gospel of Christ, and to exhort the people
to the works of charity, mercy, and faith especially pre-
scribed in the Scriptures. They are to warn them against
trusting to fancies entirely outside of Scripture, such as
" wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money or candles to
images or relics, kissing or licking the same, and saying
over a number of beads or suchlike superstitions." They
are not to permit candles, tapers, or images of wax to be
placed before the images in the churches, in order to avoid
** that most detestable offence of idolatry." ^
The Ten Articles thus authoritatively expounded are
anything but " essentially Eomish with the Pope left out
in the cold." They are rather an attempt to construct a
brief creed which a pliant Lutheran and a pliant Eomanist
might agree upon — a singularly successful attempt, and
one which does great credit to the theological attainments
of the English King.
^ The two sets of Injunctions are printed in Gee and Hardy's Documents
illustrative of the Hisfoi'^f of the English Chmrh, pp. 269, 275.
4
336 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
It was thought good to have a brief manual of
religious instruction to place in the hands of the lower
clergy and of the people, perhaps because the Ten Articles
were not always well received. A committee of divines,
chiefly Bishops,^ were appointed to " compile certain rudi-
ments of Christianity and a Catechism." ^ xhe result was
a small book, divided into four parts — an exposition of
the Apostles' Creed, of the sewn Sacraments, of the Ten
Commandments, of the Lord's Prayer, and the Ave Maria.
Two other parts were added from the Ten Articles — one on
Justification, for which faith is said to be necessary ; and
the other on Purgatory, which is stoutly denied. Great
difficulties were experienced in the compilation, owing to
the " great diversity of opinions " ^ which prevailed among
the compilers ; and the book was a compromise between
those who were stout for the old faith and those who were
keen for the new ; but in the end all seemed satisfied with
their work. The chief difference between its teaching and
that of the Ten Articles is that the name sacrament is
given to seven and not three of the chief ceremonies of
the mediaeval Church ; but, on the other hand, the doctrine
of Purgatory is denied. It was expected that the King
would revise the book before its publication,^ but he " had
no time convenient to overlook the great pains " bestowed
upon it.^ Drafts of an imprimatur by the King have
been found among the State Papers,^ but the book was
finally issued in 1537 by the "Archbishops and Bishops
of England," and was therefore popularly called the
Bishops' Book. All the clergy were ordered " to read
aloud from the pulpit every Sunday a portion of this book "
to their people.''' The Catechism appears to have been
published at the same time, and to have been in large
request.^
^ The list of members is given in Letters and Papers, etc. xii. ii. p. 163.
2 Letters and Papers, xii. ii. p. 165 {Foxe of Hereford to Bucer).
3 Ibid. etc. XII. ii. p. 122.
^Ibid, XII. ii. pp. 118, 122, 162.
5 Ibid. XII. ii. p. 228. e Jbid. xir. ii. p. 228.
7 Ibid. XII. ii. 252, 296, » Jbid. xii. ii. p. 384.
TRANSLATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURE 837
Henry viii. afterwards revised the Bishops' Book
according to his own ideas. The revision was published
in 1543, and was known as the King's Book}
Perhaps the greatest boon bestowed on the people of
England by the Ten Articles and the Injunctions which
enforced them was the permission to read and hear read
a version of the Bible in their own tongue. For the
vernacular Scriptures had been banned in England as they
had not been on the Continent, save perhaps during the
Albigensian persecution. The seventh of the Constitutions
of Thomas Arundel ordains " that no one hereafter trans-
lates into the English tongue or into any other, on his own
authority, the text of Holy Scripture either by way - of
book, or booklet, or tract." This constitution was directed
against Wiclif's translation, which had been severely
proscribed. That version, like so many others during the
Middle Ages, had been made from the Vulgate. But^/
Luther's example had iired the heart of William Tyndale
to give his countrymen an English version translated
directly from the Hebrew and the Greek originals.
Tyndale was a distinguished scholar, trained first at
Oxfojd and then at Cambridge. When at the former
University he had belonged to that circle of learned and
pious men who had encouraged Erasmus to complete his
critical text of the New Testament. He knew, as did
More, that Erasmus desired that the weakest woman should
be able to read the Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul ;
that the husbandman should sing portions of them to
himself as he followed the plough ; that the weaver should
hum them to the tune of his shuttle ; and that the
traveller should beguile the tedium of the road by repeating
their stories ; and he did not, like More, turn his back on
the ennobling enthusiasms of his youth.^
^ Cranmer's Miscellanecnis IVritings and Letters (Parker Society,
Cambridge, 1846), pp. 83-114, contains Corrections of the Institution of a
Christian Man (the Bishops' Book) by Henry VIII., with Archbishop Cranmer's
Annotasimis.
- is late as Jan. 1533 we find him writing : " Let us agitate for the use
2 2**
/
k
338 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
Tyndale found that he could not attempt his task in
England. He went to Germany and began work in
Cologne ; but, betrayed to the magistrates of that centre of
German Komanism, he fled to Worms. There he finished
the translation of the New Testament, and printed two
editions, one in octavo and the other in quarto — the latter
being enriched with copious marginal notes. The ecclesi-
astical authorities in England had early word of this trans-
lation, and by Nov. 3rd, Archbishop Warham was exerting
himself to buy and destroy as many copies as he could get
hold of both in England and abroad ; and, thanks to his
exertions, Tyndale was supplied with funds to revise his
work and print a corrected edition. This version was
welcomed in England, and passed secretly from hand to
hand. It was severely censured by Sir Thomas More,
not because the work was badly done, but really because
it was so scholarly. The faithful translation of certain
words and sentences was to the reactionary More " a
mischievous perversion of those writings intended to
advance heretical opinion " ; ^ and, strange to say, Dr. James
Gairdner seems to agree with him.^ Tyndale's version had
been publicly condemned in England at the Council called
by the King in 1530 (May), and copies of his book had
been publicly burnt in St. Paul's Churchyard, while he
himself had been tracked like a wild beast by emissaries
of the English Government in the Netherlands.
Cranmer induced Convocation in 1534 to petition for
an English version of the Bible, and next year Cromwell
persuaded Miles Coverdale to undertake his translation in
1535. It was made from the Vulgate with some assist-
of Scripture in the mother-tongue, and for learning in the Universities. . . .
I never altered a syllable of God's Word myself, nor would, against my
conscience" {Letters and Papers, etc. vi. p. 184).
^ Cf. Tyndale's answer to Sir Thomas More's animadversions. Works
(Day's edition), p. 118.
^ Cf. Pollard's excellent and trenchant note, Cranmer and the English
Reformation (New York and London, 1904), p. 110 ; Gairdner, The English
Church in the Sixteenth Century, from the Accession of Henry VIII. to the
Death of Mary (Lo.idon, 1902), pp. 190-91.
TRANSLATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURE 339
ance from Luther's version, and was much inferior to the
proscribed version of Tyndale ; but it had a large private
sale in England, and the King was induced to license it to
enable the clergy to obey the Injunctions of 1536, which
had ordered a copy of the English Bible to be placed in all
the churches before August 1537.^
The Archbishop, however, had another version in view,
which he sent to Cromwell (Aug. 1537), saying that he
liked it better than any other translation, and hoped it
would be licensed to be read freely until the Bishops could
set forth a better, which he believes will not be until after
Doomsday. This version was practically Tyndale's.
Tyndale had entrusted one of his friends, Eogers,
with his translation of the Old Testament, finished as far
as the Book of Jonah, and with his complete version of
the New Testament. Eogers had taken Tyndale's New
Testament, his Old Testament as far as the Book of
Chronicles, borrowed the remaining portion of the Old
Testament from Coverdale's version, and printed them
with a dedication to the King, signed Thomas Matthew.^
This was the edition recommended by Cranmer to Cromwell,
which was licensed. The result was that Tyndale's New
Testament (the same version which had been denounced
as pernicious, and which had , been publicly burnt only a
few years before) and a large part of his Old Testament
were publicly introduced into the parish churches of
England, and became the foundation of all succeeding
translations of the Bible into the English language.^ On
reconsideration, the translation was found to be rather too
accurate for the Government, and some changes (certainly
not corrections) were made in 1538-r39. Thus altered,
the translation was known as the Great Bible, and, because
Cranmer wrote the preface, as .Cranmer's Bible.* This
^ Letters and Papers, etc. xii. ii. p. 174.
- National Dictionary of Biography, art. " Rogers."
^ The excellence of Tyndale's version is shown by the fact that many of
his renderings have been adopted in the Revised Version.
* Dixon, History of tlic Church of England (London, 1878, etc.), ii, 77.
k
340 THE CHURCH OF HENRY YIII.
was the version, the Bible " of the largest volume," which
was ordered to be placed in the churches for the people
to read, and portions of which were to be read from the
pulpit every Sunday, according to the Injunctions of 1538.
I From 1533 on to the middle of 1539, there was a
/ distinct if slow advance in England towards a real Eeforma-
tion ; then the progress was arrested, if the movement did
not become decidedly retrograde. It seems more than
' probable that if Henry had lived a few years longer,
there would have been another attempt at an advance.
Part of the advance had been a projected political and
religious treaty with the German Protestants. Neither
Henry viii. nor John Frederick of Saxony appears to
have been much in earnest about an alHance, and from
the English King's instructions to his envoys it would
appear that his chief desire was to commit the German
divines to an approval of the Divorce.^ Luther was
somewhat scornful, and seems to have penetrated Henry's
design.^ The German theologians had no doubt but that
the marriage of Henry with Catharine was one which
should never have taken place ; but they all held that, once
made, it ought not to be broken.^ Determined efforts were
made to capture the sympathies of Melanchthon. Bishop
Foxe, selected as the theological ambassador, was instructed
to take him presents to the value of £70.* His books
were placed on the course of study for Cambridge at
Cromwell's order.^ Henry exchanged complimentary letters,
and graciously accepted the dedication of Melanchthon's
De Locis Communibus.^ An embassy was despatched,
consisting of Foxe, Bishop elect of Hereford ; Heath,
Archdeacon of Canterbury ; and Dr. Barnes, an English
divine, who was a pronounced Lutheran. They met the
Protestant Princes at Schmalkald and had long discussions.
^ Letters and Papers, etc. ix. p. 69. - Ibid. ix. 119.
^ Ibid. X. p. 234 ; cf. De Wette, Dr. Martin Lufhers Brief e, etc. iv.
p. 668.
■» lUd. IX. p. 72 ; cf. p. 70. ' Ibid. ix. p. 208.
« Ibid. IX. pp. 74, 75, 166, 311.
' HENRY VIII. AND THE SCHMALKALD LEAGUE 341
The confederated Princes and Henry found themselves in
agreement on many points : they would stoutly disown
the primacy of the Pope ; they would declare that they
would not be bound by the decrees of any Council which
the Pope and the Emperor might assemble ; and they
would pledge each other to get their Bishops and preachers
to declare them null and void. The German Princes ^
were quite willing to give Henry the title of " Defender
of the Schmalkald League." But they insisted as the
first articles of any alliance that the English Church and
King must accept the theology of the Augsburg Confession
and adopt the ceremonies of the Lutheran Church ; and
on these rocks of doctrine and ritual the proposed alliance
was shattered.^ The Germans had their own private
view 'of the English Eeformation under Henry viii., which
was neither very flattering nor quite accurate.
" So far the King has become Lutheran, that, because
the Pope has refused to sanction his divorce, he has ordered,
on penalty of death, that every one shall believe and preach
that not the Pope but himself is the head of the universal
Church. All other papistry, monasteries, mass, indulgences,
and -intercessions for the dead, are pertinaciously adhered
to." 2
The English embassy went from Schmalkald to
Wittenberg, where they met a number of divines, 'including
Luther and Melanchthon, and proceeded to discuss the
question of doctrinal agreement. Melanchthon had gone
over the Augsburg Confession, and produced a series of
articles which presented all that the Wittenberg theologians
could concede, and Luther had revised the draft.^ Both
the Germans were charmed with the learning and courtesy
of Archdeacon Heath. Bishop . Foxe " had the manner
of prelates," says Melanchthon, and his learning did not
^ Letters and Paiiers, etc. ix. pp. 344-48.
2 Ibid. X. p. 38.
* These articles have been printed with a good historical introduction by
Professor Mentz of Jena, Die Witicnherger Artikel von 1536 (Leipzig, 1905),
k
342 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
impress the Germans.^ The conference came to nothing.
/Henry did not care to accept a creed ready made for him,
and thought that ecclesiastical ceremonies might differ in
different countries. He was a King " reckoned somewhat
learned, though unworthy," he said, " and having so many
learned men in his realm, he could not accept at any
creature's hand the observing of his and the realm's
faith ; but he was willing to confer with learned men
sent from them." ^
j Before the conference at Wittenberg had come to an
! end, Henry believed that he had no need for a German
I alliance. The ill-used Queen Catharine, who, alone of all
persons concerned in the Divorce proceedings, comes out
unstained, died on Jan. 7th, 1536. Her will contained
the touching bequest : " To my daughter, the collar of
gold which I brought out of Spain " ^ — out of Spain,
when she came a fair young bride to marry Prince Arthur
of England thirty-five years before.
There is no need to believe that Henry exhibited the
f unseemly manifestations of joy which his enemies credit
him with when the news of Catharine's death was brought
to him, but it did free him from a great dread. He read
men and circumstances shrewdly, and he knew enough of
Charles v. to believe that the Emperor, after his aunt's
death, and when he had no flagrant attack on the family
honour of his house to protest against, would not make
himself the Pope's instrument against England.
Henry had always maintained himself and England
by balancing France against the Empire, and could in
addition weaken the Empire by strengthening the German
Protestants. But in 1539, France and the Emperor
had become allies, and Henry was feeling himself very
insecure. It is probable that the negotiations which
led to Henry's marriage with Anne of Cleves were due
to this new danger. On the other hand, there had
been discontent in England at many of the actions
^ Letters and Papers, etc. x. p. C3 ; cf. 58, 97, 108.
2 Ibid. IX. p. 346. =* Ibid. x. p. 15.
.1
i
THE VISITATION OF THE MONASTERIES 343
which were supposed to come from the advance towards
Reformation.
Henry viii. had always spent money lavishly. His
father's immense hoards had disappeared, while England,
under Wolsey, was the paymaster of Europe, and the
King was in great need of funds. In England as else-
where the wealth of the monasteries seemed to have been ^
collected for the purpose of supplying an empty royal
exchequer. A visitation of monasteries was ordered, under
the superintendence of Thomas Cromwell ; and, in order to
give him a perfectly free hand, all episcopal functions
were for the time being suspended. The visitation dis-
closed many scandalous things. It was followed by the
Act of Parliament (1536) for TheJDissolittion of the Lesser -^
Monasteries} The lands of all monasteries whose annual
rental was less than £200 a year were given to the
King, as well as all the ornaments, jewels, and other goods
belonginsr to them. The dislodged monks and nuns were
either to be taken into the larger houses or to receive
some measure of support, and the heads were to get
pensions sufficient to sustain them. The lands thus acquired
might have been formed into a great crown estate yielding ,
revenues large enough to permit taxation to be dis- |
pensed with ; but the King was in need of ready money, '
and he had courtiers to gratify. The convent lands
were for the most part sold cheaply to courtiers, and
the numbers and power of the county families were
largely increased. A new visitation of the remaining
monasteries was begun in 1538, this time . accompanied
with an inquiry into superstitious practices indulged
in in various parts of the country, and notorious relics
were removed. They were of all sorts — part of St.
Peter's hair and beard ; stones . with which St. Stephen
was stoned ; the hair shirt and bones of St. Thomas the
martyr; a crystal containing a little quantity of Our
Lady's milk, " with two other bones " ; the " principal
relic in England, an angel with one wing that brought to
1 The Act is printed in Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 257.
k
344 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
Caversham (near Eeading) the spear's head that pierced
the side of our Saviour on the cross " ; the ear of Malchus,
which St. Peter cut off; a foot of St. Philip at Winchester
" covered with gold plate and (precious) stones " ; and so
forth.i Miraculous images were brought up to London
and their mechanism exposed to the crowd, while an
eloquent preacher thundered against the superstition :
" The bearded crucifix called the ' Eood of Grace ' (was
brought from Maidstone, and) while the Bishop of Eochester
preached it turned its head, rolled its eyes, foamed at the
mouth, and shed tears, — in the presence, too, of many other
famous saints of wood and stone . . . the satellite saints of
the Kentish image acted in the same way. It is expected
that the Virgin of Walsingham, St. Thomas of Canter-
bury, and other images will soon perform miracles also in
the same place ; for the trickery was so thoroughly
exposed that every one was indignant at the monks and
impostors." ^
A second Act of Parliament followed, which vested all
monastic property in the King ; and this gave the King
^ Letters and Papers, etc. xiii. ii. pp. 36, 78, 147, 155. In Letters and
Papers, etc. xiv. i. p. 153, there is an official account of the English
Reformation under Henry viii., in which there is the following (p. 155) :
"Touching images set in the churches, as books of the unlearned, though
they arenotLecessary, but rather give occasion to Jews, Turks, and Saracens
to think we are idolaters, the King tolerates them, except those about which
idolatry has been committed. . . . Our Lady of "Worcester, when her gar-
ments were taken off, was found to be the similitude of a bishop, like a
giant, almost ten feet long ; . . . the roods at Boxelegh and other places,
which moved their eyes and lips when certain keys and strings were bent or
pulled in secret places — images of this sort the King has caused to be voided
and committed other as it was convenient, following the example of King
Hezekiah, who destroyed the brazen serpent. Shrines, copses, and
reliquaries, so called, have been found to be feigned things, as the blood of
Christ was but a piece of red silk enclosed in a thick glass of crystalline,
and in another place oil coloured of sanguis draconis, instead of the milk of
Our Lady a piece of chalk or ceruse. Our Lady's girdle, the verges of
Moses and Aaron, etc., and more of the Holy Cross than three cars may
carry, the King has therefore caused to be taken away and the abusive
piec^s burnt, and the doubtful sort hidden away honestly for fear of
idolatry."
2 jiid^ XIII. i. 283-81, Nicholas Partridge to Bullinger (April 12th).
DESTRUCTION OF SHRINES AND RELICS 345
possession not only of huge estates, but also of an immense
quantity of jewels and precious metals.^ The shrine of St.
Thomas at Canterbury, when " disgarnished," yielded, it is
said, no fewer than twenty-six cartloads of gold and
silver.^
This wholesale confiscation of monastic property, f/
plundering of shrines, and above all the report that Henry ^
had ordered the bones of St. Thomas of Canterbury to be )
burned and the ashes scattered to the winds, determined
Pope Paul III. to renew (Dec. 17th, 1638) the execution
of his Bull of excommunication (Aug. 30th, 1535), which
had been hitherto suspended. It was declared that the
Bull might be published in St. Andrews or " in oppido
Caljstrensi " in Scotland, at Dieppe or Boulogne in France,
or at Tuam in Ireland.^ The Pope knew that he could not
get it published in England itself.
The violent destruction of shrines and pilgrimage
places, which had been holiday resorts as well as places of
devotion, could not fail to create some popular uneasiness,
and there were other and probably deeper roots of dis-
content. England, like other nations, had been suffering
froin the economic changes which were a feature of the
times. One form peculiar to England was that wool-
growing had become more profitable, than keeping stock
or raising grain, and landed proprietors were, enclosing
commons for pasture land and letting much of their arable
land he fallow. The poor men could .no longer graze their
beasts on the commons, and the substitution of pasture for
arable land threw great numbers out of' employment.
They had to sell the animals they could no longer feed,
and did not see how a living could be earned ; nor had
they the compensation given to the disl)anded monks.
The pressure of taxation increased the prevaihng distress. ^
^ The Act for the Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries is printed in Gee
and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 281.
^ Ihid. XIII. ii. p. 49.
'■^ Letters and Papers, etc. xiii. ii. p. 459. "In oppido Calistrensi " is
probably "at Coldstream " ; Beaton had been made a Cardinal to be ready
to make the publication.
346 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
Kisings took place in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Lincoln-
shire, and the insurgents marched singing :
"Christ crucified,
For Thy woundes wide,
Us commons guyde,
Which pilgrims be,
Through Godes grace,
For to purchache.
Old wealth and peax
Of the Spiritualitie." * \
In their demands they denounced equally the contempt
shown for Holy Mother Church, the dissolution of the
monasteries, the spoliation of shrines, the contempt shown
to " Our Ladye and all the saints," new taxes, the enclosure
of commons, the doing away with use and wont in tenant
rights, the branding of the Lady Mary as illegitimate.
King's counsellors of " low birth and small estimation," and
the five reforming Bishops — Cranmer and Latimer being
considered as specially objectionable.^ The Yorkshire
Kising was called the Pilgrimage of Grace.
The insurgents or " pilgrims " were not more consistent
than other people, for they plundered priests to support
their " army " ; ^ and while they insisted on the primacy of
the Bishop of Eome, they had no wish to see his authority
re-established in England. They asked the King to admit
the Pope to be head of spiritual things, giving spiritual
authority to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, " so
that the said Bishop of Eome have no further meddling." *
The insurrections were put down, and Henry did not
cease his spoliation of shrines and monasteries in conse-
quence of their protests ; but the feelings of the people
made known by their proclamations, at the conferences held
between their leaders and the representatives of authority,
and by the examination of prisoners and suspected persons,
must have suggested to his shrewd mind whether the
^ Letters and Papers, etc. xi. p. 305.
2 Ibid. XI. pp. 238, 272, 355, 356, 477, 504, 507.
' Ihid. XI. 238. 4 2hid. XI 477,
SIGNS OF RETROGRESSION 347
Reformation was not being pressed onward too hastily for
the great majority of the Enghsh laity. England did not
produce in the sixteenth century a great spiritual leader in- /
spired by a prophetic conviction that he was speaking the
truth of God, and able to create a like conviction in the
hearts of his neighbours, while he was never so far before
them that they could not easily follow him step by step.
The King cried halt ; and when Cromwell insisted on his
plan of alliance with the Protestants of the Continent of
Europe, he went the way of all the counsellors of Henry
who withstood their imperious master (July 28th, 1540).
But this is to anticipate. Negotiations were still in
progress with the Lords of the Schmalkald League in the
spring of 1539,^ and the King was thinking of cementing
his connection with the German Lutherans by marrying
Anne of Cleves,^ the sister-in-law of John Frederick of
Saxony. The Parliament of 1539 (April 28th to June
28th) saw the beginnings of the change. Six questions
were introduced for discussion : - . '
" Whether there be in the sacrament of the altar tran-
substantiation of the substance of bread and wine into the
substance of flesh and blood or not ? Whether priests may
marry by the law of God or not? Whether the vow of
chastity of men and women bindeth by the law of God or
not ? Whether auricular confession be necessary by the
law of God or not ? Whether private Masses may stand
with the Word of God or not ? Whether it be necessary
by the Word of God that the sacrament of the altar should
be administered under both kinds or not ? " ^
The opinions of the Bishops were divided ; but the lay
members of the House of Lords evidently did not wish any
change from the medieval doctrines, and believed that no
one could be such a wise theologian as their King when
he confounded the Bishop with his stores of learning.
"We of the temporalitie," wrote one who was present,
" have been all of one opinion ... all England have cause
^ Letters and Papers, etc. xiv. i. p. 344.
^ Ibid. XIV. i. pp. 191, 192, 537. ^ Ihid. xiv. i. p. 489.
i
348 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
to thank God and most heartily to rejoice of the King's
most godly proceedings." ^ So Parliament enacted the Six
I Articles Act^ a ferocious statute commonly called " the
bloody whip with six strings." To deny transubstantiation
. or to deprave the sacraments was to be reckoned heresy,
i and to be punished with burning and confiscation of goods.
' It was made a felony, and punishable with death, to teach
that it was necessary to communicate in both kinds in the
Holy Supper ; or that priests, monks, or nuns vowed to
celibacy might marry. All clerical marriages which had
been contracted were to be dissolved, and clerical in-
continence was punishable by loss of property and benefice.
Special commissions were issued to hold quarterly sessions
in every county for the enforcement of the statute. The
official title of the Act was An Act aholisJmig Diversity/ of
Opinion. The first commission issued was for the county
of London, and at the first session five hundred persons
were indicted within a fortnight. The law was, however,
much more severe than its enforcement. The five hundred
made their submission and received the King's pardon. It
was under this barbarous statute that so-called heretics
were tried and condemned during the last years of the
reign of Henry viil.
The revival of mediaeval doctrine did not mean any
difference in the strong anti-papal policy of the English
King. It rather became more emphatic, and Henry spoke
of the Pope in terms of the greatest disrespect. " That
^ most persistent idol, enemy of all truth, and usurpator of
Princes, the Bishop of Rome," " that cankered and venomous
serpent, Paul, Bishop of Eome," are two of his phrases.^
The Act of the Six Statutes made Lutherans, as previous
' Acts had made Papists, liable to capital punishment ; but
. while Cromwell remained in power he evidently was able
' to hinder its practical execution. Cromwell, however, was
soon to fall. He seemed to be higher in favour than ever.
^ Letters and Papers^ etc. xiv. i. p. 475.
2 (^ee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 303.
^ Letters and Papers, etc. xiv. i. pp. 349, 438.
THE ACT OF THE SIX STATUTES 349
He had almost forced his policy on his master, and the
marriage of Henry with Anne of Cleves (Jan. 6th, 1540)
seemed to be his triumph. Then Henry struck suddenly
and remorselessly as usual. The Minister was impeached,
and condemned without trial. He was executed (July
28th); and Anne of Cleves was got rid of on the plea of
pre-contract to the son of the Duke of Lorraine (July 9 th).
It was not the fault of Gardiner, the sleuth-hound of the
reaction, that Cranmer did not share the fate of the
Minister. Immediately after the execution of Cromwell
(July 30th), the King gave a brutal exhibition of his
position. Three clergymen of Lutheran views, Barnes,
Garret, and Jerome, were burnt at Smithfield ; and three
Eouianists were beheaded and tortured for denying the
King's spiritual supremacy.
Henry had kept himself ostentatiously free from
responsibility for the manual of doctrine entitled Institution
of a Christian Man. Perhaps he believed it too advanced
for his people ; it was at all events too advanced for the
theology of the Six Articles ; another manual was needed,
and was published in 1543 (May 19th). It was entitled
A ^ Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian
Man ; set forth hy the King's Majesty of England.
It was essentially a revision of the former manual, and
may have been of composite authorship. Cranmer was
believed to have written the chapter on faith, and it was
revised by Convocation. The King, who issued it himselt'
with a preface commending it, declared it to be ''a true
and perfect doctrine for all people." It contains an
exposition of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's
Prayer, and of some selected passages of Scripture. Its
chief difference from the former manual is that it teaches
unmistakably the doctrines of Traiisuhstantiation, the Invoca-
tion of Saints, and the Celibacy of the Clergy. It may be
said that it very accurately represented the theology of the
majority of Englishmen in the year 1543. For King and
people were not very far apart. They both clung to
media3val t^beology ; and thoy both detested the Papacy,
i
350 THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.
and wished the clergy to be kept in due subordination.
There was a widespread and silent movement towards an
Evangelical Reformation always making itself apparent
when least expected ; but probably three-fourths of the
people had not felt it during the reign of Henry. It
needed Mary's burnings in Smithfield and the fears of a
Spanish overlord, before the leaven could leaven the whole
lump.
CHAPTER II.
THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.^
[When Henry viii. died, in 1547 (Jan. 28th), the situa-
tion in England was difficult for those who came after
him. A religious revolution had been half accom- j/
plished ; a social revolution was in progress, creating
popular ferment ; evicted tenants and uncloistered monks
formed raw material for revolt ; the treasury was empty,
the kingdom in debt, and the coinage debased. The kingly
authority had undermined every other, and the King was a
child. The new nobility, enriched by the spoils of the
Church, did not command hereditary respect ; and the
Council which gathered round the King was torn by rival
factions.^
Henry viii. had died on a Friday, but his death was
^ Sources in addition to those given on p. 313 : Calendar of State Papers,
Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth (this
Calendar is for the most part merely an index to documents which must
be read in the Record Office) ; Correspondance politique d'Odct dc Selve :
Commission des Archives Politiques, Paris, 1888) ; Literary Remains of ■
Edward VI. (Roxburgh Club, Loudon, 1857) ; Narratives of th^ Reformatio)},
(Camden Society, London, 1860) ; V/riothesley, Chronicle (Camden Society,
London, 1875) ; Weiss, Papiers d'etat du Cardinal de Cranvelle {Collection
de Documents inedits, Paris, 1841-52) ; Furnivall, Ballads from Manu-
scripts (Ballad Society, London, 1868) ; Four Supjjlications of the Commons^
and Thomas Starkey, England under Henry VIII. (Early English Text
Society, 1871); Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials and Life of Cranmer
(Oxford edition, 26 vols. 1820, etc.); Liturgies of Edward VI. (Parker
Society, Cambridge, 1844) ; Stow Annals (London, 1631).
Lateh Books in addition to those given on p. 313 : Pollard, England
under Protector Somerset (London, 1900) ; Burnet, Histonj of the Reforma-
tion (Oxford edition, 1865) ; Dixon, History of the Cfiurch of England
(London, 1893) ; Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI. and the Book of Cominon
Prayer (London, 1890). Cambridge Modem History, ii. xiv.
^ Pollard, Cambridge Modern History, ii. 174.
351
352 THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.
kept concealed till the Monday (Jan. 31st), when Edward
VI. was brought by his uncle, the Earl of Hertford, and
presented to the Council. There a will of the late King
was produced, the terms of which make it almost impossible
to believe that Henry did not contemplate a further
advance towards a Eeformation. It appointed a Council
of Eegency, consisting of sixteen persons who were named.
Eleven belonged to the old Council, and among them were
five who were well known to desire an advance, while the
two most determined reactionaries were omitted — Bishop
Gardiner and Thirlby. The will also mentioned by name
twelve men who might be added to the Council if their
services were thought to be necessary. These were added.
Then the Earl of Hertford was chosen to be Lord Protector
of the Eealm, and was promoted to be Duke of Somerset.
The coronation followed (Feb. 20th), and all the Bishops
were required to take out new commissions in the name
of the young King — the King's ecclesiastical supremacy
being thus rigidly enforced. Wriothesley, Henry's Lord
Chancellor, who had been created the Earl of Southampton,
was compelled to resign the Great Seal, and with his retire-
ment the Government was entirely in the hands of men who
wished the nation to go forward in the path of Eeformation.
Signs of their intention were not lacking, nor evidence
that such an advance would be welcomed by the population
of the capital at least. On Feb. 10 th a clergyman and
churchwardens had removed the images from the walls of
their church, and painted instead texts of Scripture ; an
eloquent preacher. Dr. Barlow, denounced the presence of
images in churches ; images were pulled down from the
churches in Portsmouth ; and so on. In May it was
announced that a royal visitation of the country would
be made, and Bishops were inhibited from making their
ordinary visitations.
In July (31st) the Council began the changes. They
issued a series of Injunctions^ to the clergy, in which they
^ These Injunctions, and the Articles of Inquiry which interprets them, are
printed in Strype, Ecclesiastical MeTrvorials, etc. (Oxford, 1822) II. i. pp. 74-83.
VISITATIONS 353
were commanded to preach against " the Bishop of Eome's '
usurped power and jurisdiction " ; to see that all images
which had been " abused " as objects of pilgrimages should •
be destroyed ; to read the Gospels and Epistles in English \
during the service ; and to see that the Litany was no \
longer recited or sung ni processions, but said devoutly '
kneeling. They next issued Twelve Homilies, meant to
guard the people against *' rash preaching." Such a series
had been suggested as early as 1542, and a proposed draft
had been presented to Convocation by Cranmer in that year,
but had not been authorised. They were now issued on
the authority of the Council. Three of them were coni-^
posed by Cranmer. These sermons contain little that is
doctrinal, and confine themselves to inciting to godly
living.^ Along with the Homilies, the Council authorised
the issue of Udall's translation of the Paraphrases of
Erasmus, which they meant to be read in the churches.
The I'oyal visitation seems to have extended over a
series of years, beginning in 1547. Dr. James Gairdner
discovered, and has printed with comments, an account or
report of a visitation held by Bishop Hooper in the diocese
of Gloucester in 1551. One of the intentions of the
visitation was to discover how far it was possible to expect
preaching from the English clergy. Dr. Gairdner sums up
the illiteracy exhibited in the report as follows : — Three
hundred and eleven clergymen were examined, and of these
one hundred and seventy-one were unable to repeat the
Ten Co7iimandments, though, strangely enough, all but
thirty-four could tell the chapter (Ex. xx.) in which they
were to be found ; ten were unable to repeat the Lord's
Prayer ; twenty-seven could not tell who was its author ;
and thirty could not tell where it was to . he f oimd. The
Keport deserves study as a description of the condition of
the clergy of the Church of England before the Eeformation.
These clergymen of the diocese of Gloucester were asked
nine questions — three under three separate heads: (1)
^ Cranmer, Miscellanecnis Writings and Letters (Parker Society, Cam-
bridge, 1846), i>. 128.
23^*
i
354 THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.
How many commandments are there ? Where are they
to be found ? Eepeat them. (2) What are the Articles
of the Christian Faith (the Apostles' Creed) ? Eepeat
them. Prove them from Scripture. (3) Eepeat the
Lord's Prayer. How do you know that it is the Lord's ?
Where is it to be found ? Only fifty out of the three
hundred and eleven answered all these simple questions,
and of the fifty, nineteen are noted as having answered
mediocriter. Eight clergymen could not answer any single
one of the questions ; and while one knew that the number
of the Commandments was ten, he knew nothing else.
Two clergymen, when asked why the Lord's Prayer was
so called, answered that it was because Christ had given
it to His disciples when he told them to watch and pray ;
another said that he did not know why it was called the
Lord's Prayer, but that he was quite willing to believe
that it was the Lord's because the King had said so ; and
another answered that all he knew about it was that such
was the common report. Two clergymen said that while
they could not prove the articles of the Creed from
Scripture, they accepted them on the authority of the
King ; and one said that he could not tell what was the
Scripture authority for the Creed, unless it was the first
chapter of Genesis, but that it did not matter, since the
King had guaranteed it to be correct.^
There is no reason to believe that the clergy of this
diocese were worse than those in other parts of England.
If this report be compared with the accounts of the un-
reformed clergy of central Germany given in the reports
of the visitations held there between 1528 and 1535, the
condition of things there which filled Luther with such
despair, and induced him to write his Small Cathechism,
was very much better than that of the . clergy of England.
Not more than three or perhaps four out of the three
hundred and eleven had ever preached or could preach.
These facts, extracted from the formal report of an
authoritative visitation made by a Bishop, explain the
^ English Historical Review for 1904 (January), pp. 98 jf.
PROGRESS OF REFORMATION 355
constant cry of the Puritans under Elizabeth for a preach-
ing ministry.
The Council were evidently anxious that the whole
service should be conducted in the English language, and
that a sermon should always be part of the public worship.
The reports of the visitation showed that it was
useless to make any general order, but an example was
given in the services conducted in the Eoyal Chapel.
Meanwhile (1547) Thomas Hopkins was engaged in
making a version of the Psalms in metre, to be sung both
in private and in the churches, and these soon became
highly popular. Like corresponding versions in France
and in Germany, it served to spread the Eeformation
among the people ; and, as might have been expected.
Archbishop Laud did his best to stop the singing of these
Psalms in later days.
The first Parliament of Edward vi. (Nov. 4th to Dec.
24th, 1547) made large changes in the laws of England
affecting treason, which had the effect of sweeping away
the edifice of absolute government which had been so
carefully erected by Henry viii. and his Minister Thomas
Cromwell. The kingly supremacy in matters of religion
was maintained ; but the Act of the Six Articles was erased
from the Statute Book, and' with it all heresy Acts which ^
had been enacted since the days of Richar(J ii., and
treason was defined as it had been in the days of Edward
III. This legislation gave an unwonted amount of freedom
to the English people.
Convocation had met in November and December
(1547), and, among other things, had agreed unanimously
that in the Holy Supper the partakers should communicate
in both kinds, and had passed a resolution by fifty-three
votes to twelve that all canons against the marriage of
the clergy should be declared void. These two resolutions
were communicated to Parliament, with the result that an
Act was passed ordaining that " the most blessed Sacrament
be hereafter commonly administered unto tlie people within
the Church of Enc^land and Ireland, and otlicr tlic Kinir's
356 THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.
dominions, under both the kinds, that is to say, of bread
I and wine, except necessity otherwise require." ^ An Act
was also framed permitting the marriage of the clergy,
which passed the Commons, but did not reach the House
of Lords in time to be voted upon, and did not become law
until the following year. Other two Acts bearing on the
condition of the Church of England were issued by this
Parliament. According to the one. Bishops were hence-
forth to be appointed directly by the King, and their courts
were to meet in the King's name. According to the
other, the property of all colleges, chantries, guilds, etc., with
certain specified exceptions, was declared to be vested in
the Crown.^
Communion in both kinds made necessary a new
Communion Service, and as a tentative measure a new
form for the celebration was issued by the Council, which
is called by Strype the Book of Communion? It enjoined
that the essential words of the Mass should still be said
in Latin, but inserted seven prayers in English in the
ceremony. * The Council also proceeded in their war
against superstitions. They forbade the creeping to the
Cross on Good Friday, the use of ashes on Ash-Wednesday,
of palms on Palm Sunday, and of candles on Candlemas ;
and they ordered the removal of all images from the
churches. Cranmer asserted that all these measures had
been intended by Henr)- viir.
The next important addition to the progress of the
Reformation was the preparation and introduction of a
Service Book"* — Thr. Bolr of the Common Pra'icv and
Administration of the Sacramentes and other Rites and
Ceremonies after thr use of the Churche of England.
^ This Act, entitled Act against Eevilers, and for receiving in both Kinds,
is printed in Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 322.
2 Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 328.
^ Ecclesiastical Memorials, etc. ii. i. p. 133. It is printed in The Two
Liturgies, with other Documents set forth by Authority in the Reign of King
Edward the Sixth (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1844), p. 1.
'' The book is printed in The, Two Liturgies, etc., of the Parker Society,
pp. 0/.
THE FIRST PRAYER-BOOK OF EDWARD VI. 357
(1549), commonly called The First Prayer-Booh of King
Edicard vi. It was introduced by an Act of Uniformity}
which, after relating how there had been for long time in
England " divers forms of Common Prayer . . . the use
of Sarum, York, Bangor, and of Lincoln," and that
diversity of use caused many inconveniences, ordains the
universal use of this one form, and enacts penalties on
those who make use of any other. The origin of the
book is somewhat obscure. There is no trace of any
commission appointed to frame it, nor of any formally
selected body of revisers. Cranmer had the chief charge
of it, and was assisted by a number of divines — though
where they met is uncertain, whether at Windsor as the
King records in his diary, or at Chertsey Abbey, as is said
in the Grey Friars Chronicle. About the end of
October the Bishops were asked to subscribe it, and it was
subjected to some revision. It was then brought before
the House of Lords and discussed there. It was in this
debate that Cranmer disclosed that he had definitely
abandoned the theory of transubstantiation. The Prayer-
Book, however, was eminently conservative, and could be
subscribed to by a believer in the old theory. The giving
and receiving of the Bread is called the Communion of the
Body of Christ, of the Wine; the Communion of the Blood
of Christ ; and the practice of making the sign of ^ the Cross
is adhered to at stated points in the ceremony. An
examination of its structure and contents reveals that it
was borrowed largely from the old English Use of Sarum,
and from a new Service Book drafted by the Cardinal
Quignon and dedicated to Pope Paul iii. The feeling
that a new Service Book was needed was not confined to
the Reformers, but was affecting all European Christians.
The great innovation in this Liturgy was that all its parts
were in the English language, and that every portion of
the service could be followed and understood by all the
worshippers.
With the publication of this First Prayer -Book of King
* Gee and Hardy, Documenls, etc. pp. 358 Z'.
358 THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD Vh
Edward vi. the first stage of the Eeformation during his
reign comes to an end. The changes made had all been
contemplated by Henry viii. himself, if we are to believe
what Cranmer affirmed. They did not content the more
advanced Eeformers, and they were not deemed sufficient
by Granmer himself.
The changes made in the laws of England — the
repeal of the " bloody " Statute of the Six Articles and of the
treason laws — had induced many of the English refugees
who had gone to Germany and to Switzerland to return to
their native land. The Emperor Charles v. had defeated
the German Protestants in the battle of Miihlberg in
1547 (April), and England for a few years became a
place of refuge for continental Protestants fleeing from
the requirements and penalties of the Interim. All this
gave a strong impetus to the Eeformation movement in
England. Martin Bucer, compelled to leave Strassburg,
found refuge and taught in Cambridge, where he was for
a time the regius professor of divinity. Paul Btichlin
(usually known by his latinised name of Fagius), a
compatriot of Bucer and a well-known Hebrew scholar,
was also settled at Cambridge, where he died (Nov. 1549).
Peter Martyr Vermigli and Bernardino Ochino, two illus-
trious Italian Protestants, came to England at the
invitation of Cranmer himself, and long afterwards
Queen Elizabeth confessed that she had been drawn
towards their theology. Peter Alexander of Aries and
John k Lasco, the Pole, also received the protection and
hospitality of England.-^ The reception of these foreign
1 Mr. Pollard {Camhridge Modern History, ii. pp. 478, 479) thinks tliat
the influence of these foreign divines on the English Reformation has been
overrated ; and he is probably correct so far as changes in worship and
usages go. His idea is that the English Reformers followed the lead of
Wiclif, consciously or unconsciously, rather than that of continental divines ;
but if the root-thought in all Reformation theology be considered, it may be
doubted whether Wiclif could supply what the English divines had in
common with their continental contemporaries. "Wiclif, with all his desire
for Reformation, was essentially a mediaeval thinker. The theological
question which separated every mediaeval Reformer from the thinkers of the
Reformation was. How the benefits won by the atoning work of Ch -ist
THE FALL OF PROTECTOR SOMERSET 359
divines, and their appointment as teachers in the English
universities, did not escape protest from the local teachers
of theology, who were overruled by the Government.
Between the first and the second stage of the Keforma-
tion of the Church of England in this reign, a political
change occurred which must be mentioned but need not
"be dwelt upon. The Duke of Somerset incurred the
wrath of his colleagues, and of the new nobility who had
profited by the sale of Church lands, by his active
sympathy with the landless peasantry, and by his proposals
to benefit them. He was driven from power, and his
place was taken by the unscrupulous Earl of Warwick, who
became Lord Protector, and received the DukedouL of
Northumberland. The new Governor of England has
been almost universally praised by the advanced Eeformers
because of the way in which he pushed forward the
Reformation. It is well to remember in these days, when
the noble character of the Duke of Somerset has received
a tardy recognition,^ that John Knox, no mean judge of
men, never joined in the praise of Northumberland, and
greatly preferred his predecessor, although his advance in
the .path of Reformation had been slower and much more
cautious.
There was much in the times to encourage Northumber-
land and his Council to think that they might hurry on
the Reformation movement.
The New Learning had made great strides in England,
and was leavening all the more cultured classes, and it
naturally led to the discredit of the old theology. The
English advanced Reformers w^ho had taken refuge abroad,
and who now returned, — men like Ridley and Hooper, —
could not fail to have had some influence on their
countrymen ; they had almost all become imbued with the
were to be appropriated by men ? The universal mediaeval answer was, By
an imitation of Christ ; while the universal Reformation answer was, By
trust in the promises of God (for that is what is meant by Justification by
Faith). In their answer to this test question, the English divines are at
one with the Reformers on the Continent, and not with Wiclif.
^ Pollard, England uiuler Protector Somerset (London, 1900).
360 THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.
Zwinglian type of theology, and Bullinger was their trusted
adviser. It seemed as if the feelings of the populace
were changing, for the mobs, instead of resenting the
destruction of images, were rather inspired by too much
iconoclastic zeal, and tried to destroy stained-glass windoWs
and to harry priests. Cranmer's influence, always on the
side of reform, had much more weight with the Council
than was the case under Henry viii. He had abandoned
long ago his belief in transubstantiation, he had given up
the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation, if he ever held
it, and had now accepted a theory of a real but spiritual
Presence in the communion elements which did not greatly
differ from the more moderate Zwinglian view. The clergy,
many of them, were making changes which went far beyond
the Act of Uniformity. The removal of restrictions on
printing the Bible had resulted in the publication of more
than twenty editions, most of them with annotations which
explained and enforced the new theology on the authority
of Scripture.
In these circumstances the Council enforced the Act
of Uniformity in a one-sided way — -against the Eomanist
sympathisers. Many Eomanist Bishops were deprived of
their sees, and their places were filled by such men as
Coverdale, Eidley, Ponet, and Scovey — all advanced
Eeformers. John Knox himself, freed from his slavery in
the French galleys by the intervention of the English
Government and made one of the King's preachers, was
offered the bishopric of Eochester, which he declined. It
must be remembered, however, that the Lord Protector and
his entourage seem to have been quite as much animated
by a desire to fill their own pockets as by zeal to promote
the cause of the Eeformation. Indeed, there came to be in
England at this time something like the tulchan Bishops
of a later period in Scotland ; great nobles got possession
of the episcopal revenues and allowed the new Bishops a
stipend out of them.^
^ ** Tulchan is a calf skin stuffed with straw to cause the cow to give
milk. The Bishop serverl to cause the bishopriok to yeeld conimoditie to my
THE SECOND PRAYER-BOOK OF EDWARD VI. 361
Then came a second revision of the Prayer-Book — The
Boke of Common Praier and Administration of the Sacra-
mentes and other Rites and Ceremonies in the Churche of
England (1552). It is c ) mm only called the Second
Prayer-Book of King Ediuard the Sixth} Cranmer had
conferences with some of the Bishops as early as Jan.
1551 on the subject, and also with some of the foreign
divines then resident in England ; and it is more than
probable that his intention was to frame such a liturgy as
would bring the worship of the Church of England into
harmony with that of the continental Eeformers. There is
no proof that the book was ever presented to Convocation
for revision, or that it was subject to a debate in Parlia-
ment, as was its predecessor. The authoritative proclama-
tion says :
" The King's most excellent majesty, with the assent of
the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled,
and by the authority of the same, has caused the aforesaid
order of common service, entitled The Book of Common
Prayer, to be faithfully and godly perused, explained, and
made fully perfect, and by the aforesaid authority has an-
nexed and joined it, so explained and perfected, to this
present statute." ^
This Book of Common Prayer deserves special notice,
because, although some important changes were made, it is
largely reproduced in the Book of Common Prayer which
is at present used in the Church of England. The main
differences between it and the First Prayer-Book of King
Bdii:ard~ appear for the most part in the communion
service, and were evidently introduced to do away with
alTTIiought of a propitiatory Mass. The word altar is
expunged, and tahle is used instead : ^minister and priest arc
used indifferently as equivalent terms. " The minister at
lord who procured it to him." Scott's Apologetical Narration of the State
and Government of the Kirk of Scotland since the Reformation (VVoodrow
Society, Edinburgh, 1846), p. 25.
^ The book is printed in The Two Liturgies, with other Docutnoits, etc.
(Parker Society), p. 187.
- G e and Hardy, DKum^'nts, etc. p. 371.
/
362 IHE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.
the time of the communion, and at all other times in his
ministration, shall use neither Alb, Vestment, nor Cope ;
but being an archbishop or bishop, he shall have or wear
a rochet : and being a priest or deacon, he shall have and
wear a surplice only." Instead of " standing humbly afore
the midst of the altar," he was to stand "at the north
side of the table " ; and the communion table was ordered to
be removed from the east end of the church and to be
placed in the chancel. Ordinary instead of unleavened
bread was ordered to be used. In the older book the
prayer, Have mercy on us, 0 Lord, had been used as an
invocation of God present in the sacramental elements ;
in the new it became an ordinary prayer to keep the com-
mandments. The Ten Commandments were introduced for
the first time. Some rubrics — that enjoiniog the minister
to add a little water to the wine — were omitted. Similar
changes were made in the services for baptism and confirma-
tion, and in the directions for ordination. One rubric was
retained which the more advanced Eeformers wished done
away with. Communicants were required to receive the
elements kneeling. But the difficulties were removed by
a later rubric :
" Yet lest the same kneeling might be thought or taken
otherwise, we do declare that it is not meant thereby, that
any adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the
sacramental bread or wine there bodily received, or to any
real or essential presence tliere being of Christ's natural
flesh and blood."
This addition is said, on somewhat uncertain evidence,
to have been suggested by John Knox.
The most important change, however, was that made
in the words to be addressed to the communicant in the
act of partaking. In the First Pro.yer-Book the words
were :
" When the priest delivereth the sacrament of the Body
of Christ, he shall say to every one these words :
' The Bnly of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for
thee, preserve thy body and souC unto everlasting life!
THE SECOND PRAYER-BOOK OF EDWARD VI. 363
And the minister delivering the sacrament of the Blood,
and giving every one once to drink and no more, shall
say:
* The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for
thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.' "^
In the Jecond Prayer-Book the rubric was altered to :
" Then the minister, when he delivereth the bread, shall
say :
' Take and eat this in remembrance that ChiHst died for
thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith and with thanks-
giving!
And the minister that delivereth the cup shall say :
' Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was sited
for thee, and be thankful* " ^
The difference represented by the change in these
words is between what might be the doctrine of transub-
stantiation and a sacramental theory distinctly lower than
that of Luther or Calvin, and which might be pure
Zwinglianism.
This Second Prayer-Book of King Edward was enforced
by a second Act of Uniformity, which for the first time
contained penalties against laymen as well as clergymen —
against " a great number of people in divers parts of the
realm, who did wilfully refuse to come to their parish
churches." The penalties themselves show that many of
tlic population refused to be dragged along the path of
reformation as fast as the Council wished- them to go.^
Soon after there followed a new creed or statement of
the fundamental doctrines received by the Church of
England. This was the Forty-two Articles, interesting
because they formed the basis of the later Elizabetlian
Thirty -nin£ Articles. They were thrust on the Church of
EnglancPin a rather disreputable way. It was expressly
stated on the title-page " that they had been agreed
upon by the Bishops and godly divines' at the last Con-
* Compare The Two Liturgies, etc. (Parker Society) p. 283.
« Ibid. pp. 92, 279.
• Gee and Hardy, Docittnents, etc. p. 2G9.
364 THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.
vocation in London — a statement which is not correct
They were never presented to Convocation, and were
issued on the authority of the King alone, and received
his signature on June 12th (1553), scarcely a month
before he died.
One other document belonging to the reign '^f Edward
VI. must be mentioned — the Reformatio Legum ji. "lesiasH-
carum, drafted by Cranmer. The Archbishop had begun
in 1544 to collect passages from the old Canon Law which
he thought might serve to regulate the government and
discipline of the Church of England. A commission of
thirty-two was appointed to assist him, and from these a
committee of eight were selected to " rough hew the Canon
Law." When the selection was made, a Bill to legalise it
was introduced into Parliament, but it failed to pass ; and
the Reformatio Legum never became authoritative in
England. It was as well, for the book enacted death
penalties for various heresies, which would have made it a
cruel weapon in the hands of a persecuting government.
During the reign of Edward vi. the beginnings of that
Puritanism which was §o prominent in the time of
Elizabeth first manifested themselves. Its two principal
spokesmen were the Bishops Hooper and Eidley. Hooper
was an ardent follower of Zwingli, and was esteemed to be
the leader of the party ; and Kidley's sentiments were not
greatly different. Hooper came into contact with the
Government when he was appointed to the See of
Gloucester. He then objected to the oath required from
Bishops at their consecration, and to the episcopal robes,
which he called "Aaronic" vestments. The details of
the contest are described by a Zwinglian sympathiser,
Macronius, in a letter to Bullinger at Zurich^ (Aug. 28th,
1550):
" The King, as you know, has appointed him (Hooper)
to the bishopric of Gloucester, which, however, he refused
to accept unless he cd. be altogether reheved from all
^ Original Letters relative to the Emjlish Reformation (Parker Society,
Cambridge, 1847), ii. 566.
BISHOP HOOPER AND VESTMENTS 365
appearance of popish superstition. Here then a question
immediately arises as to the form of oath which the Bishops
have ordered to be taken in the name of God, the saints,
and the Gospels ; which impious oath Hooper positively-
refused to take. So, when he appeared before the King in
the presence of the Council, Hooper convinced the King by-
many arguments that the oath should be taken in the name
of God alone, who knoweth the heart. This took place on
the 20th of July. It was so agreeable to the godly King,
that with his own pen he erased the clause of the oath
which sanctioned swearing by any creatures. Nothing could
be more godly than this act, or more worthy of a Christian
king. When this was done there remained the form of
episcopal consecration, wh., as lately prescribed by the
Bishops in Parliament, differs but little from the popish one.
Hooper therefore obtained a letter from the King to the
Archbishop of Canterbury (Cranmer), that he might be con-
secrated without superstition. But he gained nothing by
this, as he was referred from the Archbishop of Canterbury
to the Bishop of London (Eidley), who refused to use
any other form of consecration than that which had been
subscribed by Parliament. Thus the Bishops mutually
endeavour that none of their glory shall depart. A few
days after, on the 30th of July, Hooper obtained leave from
the King and the Council to be consecrated by the Bishop
of London without any superstition. He replied that he
would shortly send an answer either to the Council or to
Hooper. While, therefore, Hooper was expecting the
Bishop's answer, the latter went to court and alienated the
minds of the Council from Hooper, making light of tlie use
of the vestments and the like in the church, and calling
them mere matters of indifference. Many were so convinced
by him that they would hardly listen to Hoope.r's defence
when he came into court shortly afterwards. He therefore
requested them, that if they would not hear him speak,
they would at least think it proper to hear and read his
written apology. His request was granted: wherefore he
delivered to the King's councillors,- in writing, his opinion
respecting the discontinuance of the use of vestments and
the like puerilities. And if the Bishop cannot satisfy the
King with other reasons, Hooper will gain the victory. We
are daily expecting the termination of this controversy,
which is only conducted between individuals, either by con-
ference or by letter, for fear of any tumult being excited
S66 THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.
among the ignorant. You see in what a state of affairs the
Church would be if they were left to the Bishops, even to
the best of them."
In the end, Hooper allowed himself to be persuaded, and
was consecrated in the usual way.
The advanced Eeformers in England were probably
incited to demand more freedom than the law permitted by
the sight of the liberty enjoyed by men who were not
Englishmen. French and German Protestants had comfj
to England for refuge, and had been welcomed. The King
had permitted them to use the Augustines' church in
London, that they might " have the pure ministry of the
Word and Sacraments according to the apostolic form," and
they enjoyed their privileges.
" We are altogether exempted by letters patent from the
King and Council from the jurisdiction of the Bishops. To
each church (I mean the German and the French) are
assigned two ministers of the Word (among whom is my
unworthy self), over whom has been appointed super-
intendent the most illustrious John k Lasco; by whose
aid alone, under God, we .foreigners have arrived at our
present state of pure religion. Some of the Bishops, and
especially the Bishop of London, with certain others, are
opposed to our design ; but I hope their opposition will
be ineffectual. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the special
patron of foreigners, has been the chief support and
promoter of our church, to the great astonishment of
some." 1
These foreigners, outside episcopal control and not
subject to the Acts of Uniformity, enjoyed liberties of
worship which were not granted to Englishmen. They
were driven out of the country when Mary succeeded ; but
under Elizabeth and James they had the same privileges
and were naturally envied by the English Puritans, coerced
by Bishops and harried by Acts of Uniformity.
While the Eeformation was being pushed forward in
^ Original Letters, etc. (Parker Society) ii. 568, Macronius to Bullingtr
(August 28th, 1550).
THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI. 367
England at a. speed too great for the majority of the people,
ttie^ King was showing the feebleness of his constitution.
He died on the 6th of July 1553, and the collapse of the
Eeformation after his death showed the uncertainty of the
foundation on which it had been built.
CHAPTER III.
THE EEACTION UNDER MARY.^
One of the last acts of the dying King had been to make
a will regulating the succession. It was doubtless suggested
to him by the Duke of Northumberland, but, once adopted,
the lad clung to it with Tudor tenacity. It set aside as
illegitimate both his sisters. It also set aside the young-
Queen of Scotland, who, failing Mary and Elizabeth, was
the legitimate heir, being the granddaughter of Margaret,
the eldest sister of Henry viii., and selected the Lady Jane
Grey, the representative (eldest child of eldest child) of
Mary, the younger sister of Henry viii. Both the King and
his Council seem to have thought that the nation would
not submit to a Eoman Catholic on the throne ; and
Charles v. appears to have agreed with them. He con-
sidered the chances of Mary's succession small.
The people of England, however, rallied to Mary, as the
nearest in blood to their old monarch, who, notwithstanding
his autocratic rule, had never lost touch with his people.
^ Sources in addition to those on pp. 351 : Epistolce Reginaldi' Pali,
S. R. E. Cardinalis, 5 vols. (Brixen, 1744-57) ; Chronicle of Queen Jane and
of two years of Queen Mary, and especially of the Rebellion of Sir Thomas
Wyat, written by a Resident in the Tower of London (Camden Society,
London, 1850); Garnett, The Accession of Queen Mary; being the con-
temporary narrative of Antonio GuaraSy etc. (London, 1892).
Later Books : Stone, History of Mary /., Queen of England (London,
1901) ; Ranke, Die rbmischen Pdpste (Berlin, 1854) ; Hume, Visit of Philip
II. {1554) {English Historical Review, 1892) ; Leadam, Narrative of the
Pursuit of the English Refugees in Germany under Queen Mary ( Transactions
of Royal Historical Society, 1896) ; Wiesener, The Youth of Queen Elizabeth^
1533-58 (English translation, London, 1879); Zinmiermann, Kardinal
Pole sein Leben und seine Schriften (Regensburg, 1893).
368
THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 369
The new Queen naturally turned to her cousin Charles
V. for guidance. He had upheld her mother's cause and
her own ; and in the dark days which were past, his
Ambassador Chapuys had been her indefatigable friend.
It was Mary's consuming desire to bring back the
English Church and nation to obedience to .Eome — to ^
undo the work of her father, and especially of her brother.
The Emperor recommended caution ; he advised the Queen
to be patient ; to watch and accommodate her policy to the
manifestations of the feelings of her people ; to punish the
leaders who had striven to keep her from the throne, but
to treat all their followers with clemency. Above all, she
was to mark carefully the attitude of her sister Elizabeth,
and to reorganise the finances of the country.
Mary had released Gardiner from the Tower, and made
him her trusted Minister. His advice in all matters, save
that of her marriage, coincided with the Emperor's. It
was thought that small difficulty would be found in
restoring the Roman Catholic religion, but that difficulties
might arise about the papal supremacy, and especially about
the reception of a papal Legate. Much depended oh the
Pope,. If His Holiness did not demand the restoration
of the ecclesiastical property alienated during the last two
reigns, and now distributed among over forty thousand
proprietors, all might go well.
Signs were not wanting, however, that if the people
were almost unanimous in accepting Mary as their Queen,
they were not united upon religion. When Dr. Gilbert
Bourne, preaching at St. Paul's Cross (Aug. 13th, 1553)
praised Bishop Bonner, he was interrupted by shouts ; a
dagger was thrown at him ; he was hustled out of the
pulpit, and his life was threatened. The tumult was only
appeased when Bradford, a kno^yn Protestant, appealed to
the crowd. The Lord Mayor of London was authorised to
declare to the people that it was not the Queen's intention
to constrain men's consciences, and that she meant
to trust solely to persuasion to bring them to the true
faith.
*-4
i
370 THE REACTION UNDER MARY
Five days later (August 18 th), Mary issued her first
Proclamation about Religion, in which she advised her
subjects " to live together in quiet sort and Christian
charity, leaving those new-found devilish terms of papist
or heretic and such like." She declared that she meant to
support that religion which she had always professed ; but
she promised " that she would not compel any of her
subjects thereunto, nnto such time as further order, hy
common assent, may he taken therein " — a somewhat
significant threat. The proclamation prohibited unlicensed
preaching and printing " any book, matter, ballad, rhyme,
interlude, process, or treatise, or to play any interlude,
except they have Her Grace's special licence in writing for
the same," which makes it plain that from the outset Mary
did not intend that any Protestant literature should be read
by her subjects if she could help it.^
Mary was crowned with great ceremony on October 1st,
and her first Parliament met four days later (Oct. 5 th
to Dec. 6th, 1553). It reversed a decision of a former
Parliament, and declared that Henry viii.'s marriage with
Catharine of Aragon had been valid, and that Mary was
the legitimate heir to the throne ; and it wiped out all the
religious legislation under Edward vi. The Council had
wished the anti-papal laws of Henry viii. to be rescinded ;
but Parliament, especially the House of Commons, was
not prepared for anything so sweeping. The Church of
England was legally restored to what it had been at the
death of Henry, and Mary was left in the anomalous
position of being the supreme head of the Church in
England while she herself devoutly believed in the
supremacy of the Bishop of Eome. The title and the
powers it gave were useful to restore by royal proclama-
tion the mediaeval ritual and worship, and Mass was
reintroduced in this way in December.^
Meanwhile the marriage of the Queen was being
^ Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 373.
2 The Act of Parliament is printed in Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc.
p. 377.
THE queen's marriage 371
discussed. Mary herself decided the matter by solemnly
promising the Spanish Ambassador (Oct. 19th) that she
would wed Philip of Spain ; the marriage treaty was
signed on January 12th, 1554; the formal betrothal took
place in March, and the wedding was celebrated on July
25th.^ It was very unpopular from the first. The boys
of London pelted with snowballs the servants of the
Spanish embassy sent to ratify the wedding treaty (Jan.
1st, 1554); the envoys themselves were very coldly
received by the populace ; and Mary had to issue a
proclamation commanding that all courtesy should be used
to the Prince of Spain and his train coming to England to
marry the Queen.^
In September (1553) the pronouncedly Protestant
Bishops who had remained in England to face the storm,
Cranmer, Eidley, Coverdale, Latimer, were ejected and
imprisoned ; the Protestant refugees from France and
Germany and many of the eminent Protestant leaders had
sought safety on the Continent ; the deprived Komanist
Bishops, Gardiner, Heath, Bonner, Day, had been reinstated ;
and the venerable Bishop Tunstall, who had acted as
Wolsey's agent at the famous Diet of Worms, had been
placed in the See of Durham.
Various risings, one or two of minor importance and a
more formidable one under Sir Thomas Wyatt, had been
crushed. Lady Jane Grey, Lord Guilford Dudley (February
12th, 1554), Sir Thomas Wyatt, Lord Suffolk, and others
were executed. Charles v. strongl}^ recommended the
execution of the Princess Elizabeth, but his advice was not
followed.
England was still an excommunicated land, and both
Queen and King Consort were anxious to receive the papal
peace. As soon as he had been informed l»y Mary of her
succession to the throne, the Pope, Julius / JJ.y had selected
^ Philip's marriages had this peculiarity about them, tliat his second wife
(Mary) had been betrothed to his father, and his third wife had been
betrothed to his son.
2 Strype, Memorials of Queen Mary's Reign, in. ii. 215.
372 THE REACTION UNDER MARY
I Cardinal Pole to be his Legate to England (early in August
1553). No one could have been more suitable. He was
related to the royal house of England, a grandson of the
Duke of Clarence, who was the brother of Edward iv. He
had so thoroughly disapproved of the anti-papal policy of
Henry VIII. that he had been compelled to live in exile.
He was a Cardinal, and had almost become Pope. No
one could have been more acceptable to Mary. He had
protested against her mother's divorce, and had suffered for
it ; and he was as anxious as she to see England restored
to the papal obedience. But many difficulties had to be
cleared away before Pole could land in England as the
Pope's Legate. The English people did not love Legates,
and their susceptibilities had to be soothed. If the Pope
made the restoration of the Church lands a condition of the
restoration of England to the papal obedience, and if Mary
insisted on securing that obedience, there would be a
rebellion, and she would lose her crown. No one knew all
these difficulties better than the Emperor, and he exerted
himself to overcome them. The Curia was persuaded that,
as it was within the Canon Law to alienate ecclesiastical
property for the redemption of prisoners, the Church might
give up her claims to the English abbey lands in order to
win back the whole kingdom. Pole himself had doubts
about this. He believed that he might be allowed to
reason with the lay appropriators and persuade them to
make restoration, and his enthusiasm on the subject caused
many misgivings in the minds of both Charles and Philip.
Nor could the Cardinal land in England until his attainder
as an English nobleman had been reversed by Parliament.
He had been appointed Legate to England once before
(February 7th, 1536), in order to compass Henry viii.'s
return to the papal obedience ; he had written against the
Koyal Supremacy. Neither Lords nor Commons were very
anxious to receive him.
^ At last, more than thirteen months after his appoint-
ment, the way was open for his coming to England. He
landed at Dover (Nov. 20th, 1554), went on to Gravesend,
RESTORATION TO THE PAPAL OBEDIENCE 373
and there found waiting him an Act of ParHament revers-
ing his attainder. It had been introduced into the Lords,
passed in the Upper House in two days, was read three
times in the Commons in one day, and received the
Eoyal Assent immediately thereafter (Nov. 27th, 1554).
Tunstall, the Bishop of Durham, brought him letters
patent, empowering him to exercise his office of Legate
in England. He embarked in a royal barge with his
silver cross in the prow, sailed up the Thames on a
favouring tide, landed at Whitehall, and was welcomed
by Mary and Philip. On the following day the two
Houses of Parliament were invited to the Palace to meet
him, and he explained his commission. The day after,
the question was put in both Houses of Parliament
whether the nation should return to the papal obedienije,!
and was answered affirmatively. Whereupon Loids and \
Commons joined in a supplication to the Queen *' that
they might receive absolution, and be received into the
body of the Holy Catholic Church, under the Pope, the
Supreme Head thereof." The Supplication was presented
on the 30 th, and in its terms the Queen besought the
Legate to absolve the realm for its disobedience and
schism. Then, while the whole assembly knelt, King
and Queen on their knees with the others, the Legate
pronounced the absolution, and received the kingdom
"again into the unity of our Mother the Holv
Church."
It now remained to Parliament to pass the laws which
the change required. In one comprehensive statute all
the anti-papal legislation of the reigns of Henry viii. and
of Edward vi. was rescinded, and England was, so far as
laws could make it,^ what it had been in the reign of
Henry vii. Two days later (Dec. 2nd, 1554), on the
first Sunday in Advent, Philip and Mary, with the Legate,
attended divine service in St. Paul'^, and after Mass
listened to an eloquent sermon from Bishop Gardiner,
in the course of which he publicly abjured the teaching
* Gee and Hanly, Ihcnmoiff^, etc. p. 385.
I
374 THE REACTION UNDER MARY
of his book Be vera ohedientia} Convocation received a
special absolution from the Legate. To show how
thoroughly England had reconciled itself to Mother
; Church, Parhament proceeded to revive the old Acts
/ against heresy which had been originally passed for the
' suppression of Lollardy, among them the notorious De
hceretico combicrendo, and England had again the privilege
of burning Evangelical Christians secured to it by Act of
Parliament.^
In March 1554 the Queen had issued a series of
Injunctions to all Bishops, instructing them on a variety
of matters, all tending to bring the Church into the
condition in which it had been before the innovations of
the late reign. The Bishops were to put into execution
all canons and ecclesiastical laws which were not expressly
contrary to the statutes of the realm. They were not to
inscribe on any of their ecclesiastical documents the
phrase regia auctoritate fulcitus] they were to see that
no heretic was admitted to any ecclesiastical office ; they
were to remove all married priests, and to insist that
every person vowed to celibacy was to be separated from
his wife if he had married ; they were to observe all the
holy days and ceremonies which were in use in the later
days of the reign of King Henry viii. ; all schoolmasters
suspected of heresy were to be removed from their office.
These Injunctions kept carefully within the lines of the
Act which had rescinded the ecclesiastical legislation of
the reign of Edward vi.^ The Bishop of London, Bonner,
had previously issued a list__ot searching questions to be
put to the clergy of his diocese, which concerned the
^ In the days of Henry viii., Bishop Gardiner had published a book
under this title, in which the papal jurisdiction in England was strongly
repudiated. Someone, probably Bale, when Gardiner was aiding the Queen
to restore that supremacy, had translated the book into English, and had
printed at the bottom of the title-page, "A double-minded man is in-
constant in all his ways."
2 Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 384. The Act de hceretico com-
hurcndo will be found on p. 133.
3 Ibid. p. 380.
RESTORATION TO THE PAPAL OBEDIENCE 375
laity as well as the clergy, and which went a good deal
further. He asked whether there were any married
clergymen, or clergymen who had not separated themselves
from their wives or concubines ? Whether any of the
clergy maintained doctrines contrary to the Catholic
faith ? Whether any of the clergy had been" irregularly
or schismatically ordained ? Whether any of them had
said Mass or administered the sacraments in the English
language after the Queen's proclamation ? Whether they
kept all the holy days and fasting days prescribed by the
Church ? Whether any of the clergy went about in other
than full clerical dress ? Whether any persons in the
parish spoke in favour of clerical marriage ? These and
many other minute questions were put, with the evident
intention of restoring the mediaeval ceremonies and
customs in every detail.^ His clergy assured the Bishop
that it was impossible to make all the changes he
demanded at once, and Bonner was obliged to give them
till the month of November to get their parishes in ' order.
This London visitation evidently provoked a great deal
of discontent. In April (1554) "a dead cat was hung on
the^ gallows in the Cheap, habited in garments like those
of a priest. It had a shaven crown, and held in its fore-
paws a round piece of paper to represent a wafer. ... A
reward of twenty marks was offered for the > discovery
of the author of the outrage, but it was quite ineffectual.", ^
Other graver incidents showed the smouldering discontent.
The revival in Parliament of the old anti-heresy laws
may be taken as the time clearly foreshadowed in the
Queen's first proclamation on religious affairs when per-
suasion was to cease and force take its place. The
platitudes of many modern historians " about Mary's
humane and merciful disposition, about Gardiner's aversion
to shedding blood, about "the good Bishop" Bonner's
^ Bonner's Articles of Inquiry are printed in Strype's Historical
Memorials, Ecclesiastical and Civil, etc in. ii. p. 217.
2 Gairdner's The English Church in the Sixteenth Century, etc. (London,
1902) p. 339.
376 THE REACTION UNDER MARY
benevolent attempt to persuade his victims to recant,
may be dismissed from our minds. The fact remains,
that the persecutions which began in 1555 were clearly
indicated in 1553, and went on with increasing severity
until the Queen's death put an end to them.
The visitations had done their work, and the most
eminent of the Eeformed bishops and divines had been
caught and secured in various prisons. " The Tower, the
Fleet, the Marshalsea, the King's Bench, Newgate, and the
two Counters were full of them."^ Their treatment
differed. " The prisoners in the King's Bench had toler-
ably fair usage, and favour sometimes shown them. There
was a pleasant garden belonging thereunto, where they
had liberty sometimes to walk." They had also the
liberty of meeting for worship, as had the prisoners in the
Marshalsea. Their sympathisers who had escaped the search
kept them supplied with food, as did the early Christians
their suffering brethren in the first centuries. But in some
of the other prisons the confessors were not only confined
in loathsome cells, but suffered terribly from lack of food.
At the end of Strype's catalogue of the two hundred
and eighty-eight persons who were burnt during the
reign of Mary, he significantly adds, " besides those that
dyed of famyne in sondry prisons."^ Some of the im-
prisoned were able to draw up (May 8th, 1554) and
send out for circulation a confession of their faith, meant
to show that they were suffering simply for holding and
proclaiming what they believed to be scriptural truth.
They declared that they believed all the canonical books
of Scripture to be God's very Word, and that it was to
be the judge in all controversies of faith ; that the
Catholic Church was the Church which believed and
followed the doctrines taught in Scripture ; that they
accepted the Apostles' Creed and the decisions of the
first four (Ecumenical Councils and of the Council of
Toledo, as well as the teachings of Athauasius, lienanis,
* Strypc, Mcmuriah, Ecclesiastical and Civil, etc. ill. i. 221, 223.
'- Ibid. III. ii. 556.
THE MARTYRS 377
Tertullian, and Damasus ; that they believed that justifica-
tion came through the mercy of God, and that it was
received by none but by faith only, and that faith was
not an opinion, but a persuasion wrought by the Holv
Ghost; they declared that the external service of God
ought to be according to God's Word, and conducted in
a language which the people could understand; they
confessed that God only by Jesus Christ is to be prayed
to, and therefore disapproved of the invocation of the
saints ; they disowned Purgatory and Masses for the dead ;
they held that Baptism and the Lord's Supper were the
Sacraments instituted by Christ, were to be administered
according to the institution of Christ, and disallowed the
mutilation of the sacrament, the theory of transubstantia-
tion, and the adoration of the bread.^ This was signed
by Ferrar, Hooper, Coverdale (Bishops), by Eogers (the
first martyr), by Bradford, Philpot, Crome, Saunders, and
others. John Bradford, the single-minded, gentle scholar,
was probably the author of the Confession.
Cardinal Pole, in his capacity as papal Legate, issued
a commission (Jan. 28th, 1555) to Bishop Gardiner and
several others to try the prisoners detained for heresy.
Then followed (Feb. 4th, 1555) the burning of John
Rogers, to whom Tyndale had entrusted his translation
of the Scriptures, and who was the real compiler of the
Bible known as Matthews'. The scenes at his execution
might have warned the authorities that persecution was
not going to be persuasive. Crowds cheered him as he
passed to his death, "as if he were going to his wedding,"
the French Ambassador reported. His fate excited a
strong feeling of sympathy among almost all classes in
society, which was ominous. Even Simon- Eenard, the
trusted envoy of Charles v., took ' the liberty of warning
Philip that less extreme measures ought to be used. But
the worst of a persecuting policy is that when it has
once begun it is almost impossible to give it up with-
out confession of defeat. Bishop Hooper was sent to
' Strype, Memorials^ Ecclesiastical and Civil, etc. iii. i. 222, in. ii. 224,
378 THE REACTION UNDER MARY
Gloucester to suffer in his cathedral town, Saunders to
Coventry, and Dr. Taylor was burnt on Aldham Common
in Suffolk. Several other martyrs suffered the same fate
of burning a few days afterwards.
Kobert Ferrar, the Eeformed Bishop of St. David's, was
sent to Carmarthen to be burnt in the chief town of his
diocese (March 30th, 1555). Perhaps it was his death
that gave rise to the verses in Welsh, exhorting the men
of the Principality to rise in defence of their religion
against the English who were bent on its destruction, and
calling them to extirpate image worship and the use of
the crucifix.^
Bishops Eidley and Latimer and Archbishop Cranmer
fhad been kept in confinement at Oxford since April 1554;
and they were now to be proceeded against. The two
Bishops were brought before the Court acting on a com-
mission from Cardinal Pole, the Legate. They were con-
demned on Oct. 1st, 1555, and on the 16th they were
burnt at Oxford in the present Broad Street before BaUiol
College. Cranmer witnessed their death from the top of
the tower in which he was confined.
In the Archbishop's case it was deemed necessary, in
order to fulfil the requirements of Canon Law, that he
should be tried by the Pope himself. He was accordingly
informed that his sovereigns had " denounced " him to the
Pope, and that His Holiness had commissioned the Cardinal
Du Puy, Prefect of the Inquisition, to act on ..his behalf,
and that Du Puy had delegated the duty to James Brooks,
who had succeeded Hooper as Bishop of Gloucester, to the
Dean of St. Paul's, and to the Archdeacon of Canterbuiy.
The trial took place in St. Mary's Church. The accusers,
Philip and Mary, were i-epresented by Drs. Marty n and
Story. They, in the name of their sovereigns, presented
a lengthy indictment, in which the chief charges were
adultery, perjury, and heresy. The first meant that
although a priest he had been married, and had even
^ Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth,
1601-3; with Addenda, 1547-65 (London, 1870), p. 483.
cranmer's trial 379
married a second time after he had been made an Arch-
bishop ; the second, that he had sworn obedience to the
Pope and broken his oath ; and the third, that he had
denied the doctrine of transubstantiation.^
Cranmer refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of his
judges, but answered the charges brought against him to
his accusers because they represented his sovereigns. He
denied that the Pope had any ecclesiastical power within
England ; but submitted to the kingly supremacy. As Brooks
had no authority from the Pope to do more than hear the
case, no judgment was pronounced ; it was only intimated
that the proceedings would be reported to Rome. Cranmer
was conducted back to his prison. There he addressed
first one, then a second letter to the Queen.^ In dignified
and perfectly respectful language he expressed the degra-
dation of the kingdom exhibited in the act of the sovereigns?
appealing to an " outward judge, or to an authority coming
from any person out of this realm " to judge between them
and one of their own subjects. Cranmer early in his
career had come to the unalterable opinion that the papal
supremacy was responsible for the abuses and disorders in
the* medieval Church, and that reformation was impossible
so long as it was maintained. In common with every
thoughtful man of his generation, he repudiated the whole
structure of papal claims built up by the Roman Curia
during the fifteenth century, and held that it was in every
way incompatible with the loyalty which every subject
owed to his sovereign and to the laws of his country. He
took his stand on this conviction.
" Ignorance, I know," he said, " may excuse other men ;
but he that knoweth how prejudicial and injurious the
power and authority which the Pope challengeth everywhere
is to the Crown, laws, and customs of this realm, and yet
will allow the same, I cannot see in anywise how he can
^ An accouut of Cranmer's trial is given in Foxe, Ads and Monuments
(London, 1851), iii. 656 jf. The process is in Cranmer's Miscellaneous Writ-
ings and Letters (Parker Society), pp. 541 ff.
- Cranmer's Works, ii. 447 ff.
380 THE REACTION UNDER MARY
keep his due allegiance, fidelity, and truth to the Crown and
state of this realm."
In his second letter he struck a bolder note, and de-
clared that the oath which Mary had sworn to maintain
the laws, liberties, and customs of the realm was incon-
sistent with the other oath she had taken to obey the
Pope, to defend his person, and to maintain his authority,
honour, laws, and privileges. The accusation of perjury
did not touch him at all. The sovereigns — Bishop Brooks,
appointed to try him — every constituted authority in the
realm — when confronted by it, had to choose between the
oath of allegiance to country or to Papacy ; he had chosen
allegiance to his fatherland ; others who acted differently
betrayed it. That was his position. The words he
addressed to Queen Mary — " I fear me that there be con-
tradictions in your oath " — was his justification.
At Eome, Cranmer was found guilty of contumacy, and
the command went forth that he was to be deposed, de-
graded, and punished as a heretic. In the meantime he
was burnt in effigy at Eome. When he heard his sentence,
he composed an Appeal to a General Council, following,
he said, the example of Luther.^ The degradation was
committed to Bonner and Thirlby, and was executed by
the former with his usual brutality. This done; he was
handed over to the secular authorities for execution. Then
began a carefully prepared course of refined mental tor-
ture, which resulted in the " Eecantations of Thomas
Cranmer." ^ A series of recantations was presented to
him, which he was ordered to sign by his sovereign ; and,
strange as it may seem now, it was the sovereign's command
that made it almost impossible for Cranmer to refuse to
sign the papers which, one after another, were given him.
He was a man who felt the necessity of an ultimate
authority. He had deliberately put aside that of the Pope,
and as deliberately placed that of the sovereign in its
place ; and now the ultimate authority, which his con-
* Works, ii. pp. 445-56.
^ Miscellaneous Writings, etc. (Parker Society) p. 563.
cranmer's martyrdom 381
science approved, commanded him to sign. The first four
were not real recantations ; Cranmer could sign them with
a good conscience ; they consisted of generalities, the effect
of which depended on the meaning of the terms used, and
everyone knew the meanings which he had attached to the
words all throughout his public life. But the fifth and
the sixth soiled his conscience and occasioned his remorse.
It was not enough for Mary, Pole, and Bonner that they
were able to destroy by fire the bodies of English Ee-
formers, they hoped by working partly on the conscience
and partly on the weakness of the leader of the English
Eeformation, to show the worthlessness of the whole move-
ment. In the end, the aged martyr redeemed his momen-
tary weakness by a last act of heroism. He knew that
his recantations had been published, and that any further
declaration made would probably be suppressed by his un-
scrupulous antagonists. He resolved by a single action to
defeat their calculations and stamp his sincerity on the
memories of his countrymen. His dying speech was
silenced, as he might well have expected ; but he had
made up his mind to something which could not be
stifled.i
" At the moment he was taken to the stake he drew from
his bosom the identical paper (the recantation), throwing it,
in the presence of the multitude, with his own hands into
the fiames, asking pardon of God and of the people for
having consented to such an act, which he excused by say-
ing that he did it for the public benefit, as, - had his life,
which he sought to save, been spared him, he might at some
time have still been of use to them, praying them all to per-
sist in the doctrines believed by him, and absolutely denying
the Sacrament and the supremacy of the Church. And,
finally, stretching forth his arm' and right hand, he said :
' This which hath sinned,- having signed the writing, must
be the first to suffer punishment ' ; and thus did he place it
in the fire and burned it himself." 2
1 Pollard, Cranmer, pp. 367-81.
2 Calendar of State Papers and MSS. existing in the Archives and Collec-
tions of Venice, 1555-56, p. 386.
382 THE REACTION UNDER MARY
If the martyrdoms of Eidley and Latimer lighted the
torch, Cranmer's spread the conflagration which in the
end burnt up the Komanist reaction and made England a
Protestant nation. The very weakness of the aged Primate
became a background to make the clearer his final heroism.
The "common man" sympathised with him all the more.
He had never been a very strong man in the usual sense
of the words. The qualities which go to form the exquisite
liturgist demand an amount of religious sensibility and
sympathy which seldom belongs to the leader of a minority
with the present against it and the future before it. His
peculiar kind of courage, which enabled him to face Henry
viii. in his most truculent moods, was liker a woman's than
a man's, and was especially called forth by sympathy with
others in suffering. None of Henry's Ministers pleaded
harder or more persistently for the Princess Mary, the
woman who burnt him, than did Cranmer ; and he alone
of all his fellows dared to beseech the monarch for Crom-
well in his fall.^
The death of Cranmer was followed by a long succes-
sion of martyrdoms. Cardinal Pole became the Archbishop
of Canterbury, and in Philip's absence the principal adviser
of the Queen. He did not manage, if he tried, to stop the
burnings. Sometimes he rescued prisoners from the vindic-
tive Bonner ; at others he seems to have hounded on the
persecutors. Mary's conscience, never satisfied at the
confiscation of property, compelled her to restore the lands
still in possession of the Crown, and to give up the " first
fruits " of English benefices — the only result being to
awaken the fears of thousands of proprietors, and set them
against the papal claims. She attempted to restore the
monastic institutions, with but scanty results ; to revive
pilgrimages to shrines, which were very forced affairs, and •
had to be kept alive by fining the parents of children
who did not join them. The elevation of Pope Paul iv.
(Cardinal Caraffa) to the See of Rome increased her
difficulties. The new Pontiff, a Neapolitan, hated her
' Pollard, Cranmer, p. 328.
DEATH OF QUEEN MARY 883
Spanish husband, and personally disliked Cardinal Pole,
her chief adviser. Her last years were full of
troubles.
Mary died in 1558 (Nov. 17th). "The unhappiest
of queens, and wives, and women," she had been born
amidst the rejoicings of a nation, her mother a princess of
the haughtiest house in Europe. In her girlhood she had
been the bride-elect of the Emperor — a lovely, winning
young creature, all men say. In her seventeenth year, at
the age when girls are most sensitive, the crushing stroke
which blasted her whole life fell upon her. Her father,
the Parliament, and the Church of her country called her
illegitimate ; and thus branded, she was sent into solitude
to brood over her disgrace. When almost all England
hailed her Queen in her thirty-seventh year, she was
already an old woman, with sallow face, harsh voice, her
dark bright eyes alone telliug how beautiful she had once
been. But the nation seemed to love her who had been
so long yearning for affection ; she married the man of her
choice ; and she felt herself the instrument selected by
Heaven to restore an excommunicated nation to the peace
of God. Her husband, whom she idolised, tired of living
with her after a few years. The child she passionately
longed for and pathetically believed to' be coming never
came.^ The Church and the Pope she had sacrificed so
much for, disregarded her entreaties, and seemed careless
of her troubles. The people who had welcomed her, and
whom she really loved, called her " Bloody ','_ Mary, — a
name which was, after all, so well deserved that it will
^ There are few more pathetic documents among the State Papers than
those thus catalogued :
" King Philip and Queen Mary to Cardinal Pole, notifying that the Queen
has been delivered of a Prince." ■
"Passport signed by the King and Queen for Sir Henry Sydney to go
over to the King of the Romans and the King of Bohemia, to announce the
Queen's happy delivery of a Prince."
There are several such notilications all ready for the birth which never
took place. Cahtidar of Stale Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigiis oj
Edward VI., Maiy, Elizabeth, 1547-SO ^London, 1856), p. 67.
i
I
384 THE REACTION UNDER MARY
always remain. Each disappointment she took as a
warning from Heaven that atonement had not yet been
paid for England's crimes, and the fires of persecution were
kept burning to appease the God of sixteenth century
Romanism.
\
CHAPTER IV.
THE SETTLExMENT UNDER ELIZABETH.^
Maey Tudor's health had long been frail, and when it was
known for certain that she would leave no direct heir (i.e.
from about June 1558), the people of England were silently
coming to the conclusion that Elizabeth must be Queen, or
civil war would result. It seemed also to be assumed that
she would be a Protestant, and that her chief adviser would
* SorRCES: Calendar of state Papers, Elizabeth, Foreign (London. 1863,
etc. ) ; Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots
(Edinburgh, 1898, etc. ) ; Calendar of State Papers, Hatfield MSS. (London,
1883) ; Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1558-SO (London, 1890) ;
Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, 1558-67 (London, 1892) ; "VVeiss,
Papiers d'etat du Cardinal Granvelle, vols, iv.-vi. (Paris, 1843-46) •
Bullarium Romamcm, for two Bulls — the one of 1559 (i. 840) and the one
deposing Elizabeth (ii. 324) ; A Collection of Original Letters from the Bishops
to the Privy Council, 1564 (vol. ix. of the Camden Miscellany, London,
1893) ; Calvin's Letters (vols, xxxviii.-xlviii. of the Corpus Refortnatorn,m) ;
Zurich Letters (two series) (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1853) ; Liturgies
and occasional Forms of Prayer set forth in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
(Parker Society, Cambridge, 1847) ; Dysen, Queene Elizabeth's Proclama-
tion {\^\%).
Later Books: Creighton, Queen Elizabeth (London, 1896) ; Hume, The
Co^irtships of Qioeen Elizabeth (London, 1896) ; and The great Lord Burghley
(London, 1898) ; Philippson, La contre-r6volution religieuse (Brussels
1884) ; Ruble, Le traits de Cateau-Camhrisis (Paris, 1889) ; Gee, Tlie
Elizahethan Clergy (Oxford, 1898) ; and The Elizabethan Prayer-Book and
Ornaments (London, 1902) ; Tomlinson, . The Prayer-Book, Articles and
Homilies (London, 1897) ; Hardwick, History of the Articles of Pwligion
(Cambridge, 1859) ; Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of Enqlnnd
(London, 1875) ; Neal, History of the Pxwitans (London, 1754) ; Parker
The Ornaments Rubric (Oxford, 1881); Shaw, Elizabethan Prcsbytcrianisvi
{English Historical Revietc, iii. 655) ; Cambridge Modern History, ii. 550 f, •
Frere, History of the English Church in the Poiigm of Elizabeth and James
155S-1625 (London, 1904).
25**
386 THE SETTLEiMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
be William Cecil, who had been trained in statecraft as
secretary to England's greatest statesman, the Lord Pro-
tector Somerset. So it fell out.
Many things contributed to create such expectations.
The young intellectual life of England was slowly becoming
Protestant. Both the Spanish ambassadors noticed this
with alarm, and reported it to their master.^ This was
especially the case among the young ladies of the upper
classes, Avho were becoming students learned in Latin,
Greek, and Italian, and at the same time devout Protestants,
with a distinct leaning to what afterwards became Puritan-
ism. Elizabeth herself, at her most impressionable age had
been the pupil of Bishop Hooper, who was accustomed to
praise her intelligence. " In religious matters she has
been saturated ever since she was born in a bitter hatred
to our faith," said the Bishop of Aquila.^ The common
people had been showing their hatred of Pomanism, and
" images and religious persons were treated disrespect-
fully." It was observed that Elizabeth " was very much
wedded to the people and thinks as they do," and that
" her attitude was much - more gracious to the common
people than to others." ^ The burnings of the Protestant
martyrs, and especially the execution of Cranmer, had
stirred the indignation of the populace of London and the
south counties against Eomanism, and the feelings were
spreading throughout the country. All classes of the
people hated the entire subjugation of Englisli interests to
those of Spain during the late reign, just as the people of
Scotland at the same time were growing weary of French
domination under Mary of Lorraine, and Elizabeth shared
the feeling of her people.*
I Yet there was so much in the political condition of
the times to make both Elizabeth and Cecil pause before
^ Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, pre-
served 'prwcipally in the Archives of Siniancas (London, 1892), i. p. 7.
2 Ibid. |). 80. In the same letter the Bishop blames the instructions of
the "Italian heretic friars," i,e, Peter Martyr Vermigli and Ochino ; cf.
p. 81.
3 Ibid. pp. 1, 4, 5, etc. * Ihid. pp. 3, 77.
\
THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND 387
committing themselves to the Eeformation, that it is
necessary to believe that religions conviction had a great
influence in determining their action. England was not
the powerful nation in 1558—60 which it became after
twenty years under the rule of the great Queen. The
agrarian troubles which had disturbed the three reigns of
Henry viii., Edward, and Mary had not died out. The
coinage was still as debased as it had been in the closing
years of Henry viii. Trade was stagnant, and the country
was suffering from a two years' visitation of the plague.
The war with France, into which England had been
dragged by Spain, had not merely drained the country of
men and money, but was bringing nothing save loss of
territory and damage to prestige. Nor was there much
to be hoped from foreign aid. The Eomanist reaction was
in full swing throughout Europe, and the fortunes of the
continental Protestants were at their lowest ebb. It was
part of the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis (April 1559) that
France and Spain should unite to crush tlie Protestantism
of the whole of Europe, and the secret treaty between
Philip II. and Catherine de' Medici in 1565^ showed that
such a design was thought possible of accomplishment
during the earlier years of Elizabeth. It was never
wiiolly abandoned until the defeat of the Armada in 1588.
Cecil's maxim, that the Eeformation could not be crushed
until England had been conquered, had for its corollary
that the conquest of England must be the prime object of
the Ptomanist sovereigns who were bent on bringing Europe
back to the obedience of Eome. The determination to
take the Protestant side added to the insecurity of
Elizabeth's position in the earlier years of her reign. She
was, in the opinion of the Pope and probably of all the
European Powers, Eomanist and Protestant, illegitimate ;
and heresy combined with bastardy was a terrible weapon
in the hands of Henry ii. of France, who meant to support
the claims .of his dauglitcr-in-law, the young Queen of
^ Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, etc.,
Introduction, p. Iv.
388 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH \
Scots, — undoubtedly the lawful heir in the eyes of all who
believed that Henry viii. had been lawfully married to
Catharine of Aragon. The Spanish Ambassador, Count de
Feria, tried to frighten Elizabeth by reminding her how,
in consequence of a papal excommunication, Navarre had
been seized by the King of Spain.^ His statement to his
master, that at her accession two-thirds of the English
people were Eomanists,- may be questioned (he made
many miscalculations), but it is certain that England was .
anything but a united Protestant nation. Still, who knew
what trouble Philip might have in the Netherlands, and
the Lords of the Congregation might be encouraged enougli
to check French designs on England through Scotland.^
At the worst, Philip of Spain would not like to see
England wholly in the grip of France. The Queen and
Cecil made up their minds to take the risk, and England
was to be Protestant and defy the Pope, from " whom
nothing was to be feared but evil will, cursing, and
practising."
Paul IV., it was said, was prepared to receive the news
of Elizabeth's succession favourably, perhaps under con- '
ditions to guarantee her legitimacy ; but partly to his
astonishment, and certainly to his wrath, he was not even
officially informed of her accession, and the young Queen's
ambassador at Eome was told that she had no need for
him there.
The changes at home, however, were made with all due
caution. In Elizabeth's first proclamation an " et cetera "
veiled any claim to b« the Head of the Church,^ and
her earliest meddling with ecclesiastical matters was to
forbid all contentious preaching.^ The statutory religion
(Romanist) was to be maintained for the meantime. No
^ Calendar of Letters atid State Paj)ers relating to English Affairs, etc.
p. 62.
2 Ihid. pp. 39, 67 ; cf. 83.
' Cf. Device in Gee's Elizabethan Prayer Book, p. 197.
^ Strype, Annals of the R^forviatiou and Establishment of Religion, etc.
(Oxford, 1824) i. ii. 389.
^ Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 416.
goderick's advice 389
official proclamation was made foreshadowing coming
changes.
Elizabeth, however, did not need to depend on proclama-
tions to indicate to her people the path she meant to tread.
She graciously accepted the Bible presented to her on her
entry into London, clasped it to her bosom, and pressed it
to her lips. Her hand ostentatiously shrank from the kiss of
Bonner the persecutor. The great lawyer, Goderick, pointed
out ways in which Protestant feeling might find vent in a
legal manner:
" In the meantime Her Majesty and all her subjects may
by licence of law use the English Litany and suffrages used
in King Henry's time, and besides Her Majesty in her closet
may use the Mass without lifting up the Host according to
the ancient canons, and may also have at every Mass some
communicants with the ministers to be used in both kinds." ^
The advice was acted upon, improved upon. " The affairs
of religion continue as usual," says the Venetian agent
(Dec. 17th, 1558), "but I hear that at Court when the
Queen is present a priest officiates, who says certain
prayers with the Litanies in English, after the fashion of
King Edward." ^ She went to Mass, but asked the Bishop
officiating not to elevate the Host for adoration ; and when
he refused to comply, she and her ladies swept out of
church immediately after the Gospel was read.^ Parlia-
ment was opened in the usual manner with the per-
formance of Mass, but the Queen did not appear until it
was over; and then her procession was preceded by a
choir which sang hymns in English. When the Abbot of
Westminster met her in ecclesiastical procession with the
usual candles sputtering in the hands of his clergy, the
^ Goderick's Divers Points of ReUgion contrary to the Chiirch of Rome is
printed by Dr. Gee in the appendix to his Elizabethan Prayer-Book and
Ornaments (London, 1902), pp. 202 Jf. ; the sentence quoted is on p. 205;
the document is also in Dixon's History of the Church of Englandy v. 28.
2 VeTielian State Papers, 1558-80, 1.
^ Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, pre-
served chiefly in the Archives of Simanca,s, i. 17, 25.
390 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
Queen shouted, " Away with these torches, we have hght
enough." ^
She was crowned on January 15th, 1559 ; but whether
with all the customary ceremonies, it is impossible to say ;
it is most Hkely that she did not communicate.^ The
Bishops swore fealty in the usual way, but were chary of
taking any official part in the coronation of one so plainly
a heretic. Later in the day, Dr. Cox, who had been King
Edward's tutor, and was one of the returned refugees,
preached before the Queen. As early as Dec. 14th
(1558) the Spanish Ambassador could report that the
Queen " is every day stUnding up against religion
(Eomanism) more openly," and that " all the heretics who
had escaped are beginning to flock back again from
Germany." ^
When Convocation met it became manifest that the
clergy would not help the Government in the proposed
changes. They declared in favour of transubstantiation
and of the sacrifice of the Mass, and against the royal
supremacy. The Keformation, it was seen, must be carried
through by the civil power exclusively ; and it was somewhat
difficult to forecast what Parliament would consent to do.
What was actually done is still matter of debate, but
it seems probable that the Government presented at least
three Bills. The first was withdrawn ; the second was
wrecked by the Queen withholding her Eoyal Assent ; the
third resulted in the Act of Supremacy and in the Act of
Uniformity. It is most likely that the first and second
Bills, which did not become law, included in one pro|)Osed
Act of legislation the proposals of the Government about
the Queen's Supremacy and about Uniformity of Public
Worship.* The first was introduced into the House of
^ Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Edward VI. ,
Mary, and Elizabeth (London, 1856), i. 123.
- Calendar of Letters and. State Papers relating to English Affairs, pre-
served chiefly in the Archives of Simancas, i. 25.
3 Ibid. pp. 7, 12.
^ English Historical Review for July 1903, pp. 517^. ; Dublin Review,
Jan. 1903 ; The Church Intelligencer, Sept. 1903, pp. 134./?".
THE LORDS OPPOSE THE REFORMATION 391
Commons on Feb. 9th (1559), was discussed there Feb.
13th to 16th, and then withdrawn. A " new " Bill " for
the supremacy annexed to the Crown " was introduced in
the Commons on Feb. 21st, passed the third reading on
the 25th, and was sent to the Lords on the 27th.^
The majority in the House of Commons was Protestant ; ^
but the Marian Bishops had great influence in the House
of Lords, and it was there that the Government proposals
met with strong opposition. Dr. Jewel describes the
situation in a letter to Peter Martyr (March 20 th):
" The bishops are a great hindrance to us ; for being, as
you know, among the nobility and leading men in the
Upper House, and having none there on our side to expose
their artifices and confute their falsehoods, they reign as
sole monarchs in the midst of ignorant and weak men, and
easily overreach our little party, either by their numbers
or their reputation for learning. The Queen, meanwhile,
though she openly favours our cause, yet is wonderfully
afraid of allowing any innovations." ^
The Bill (Bill No. 2 — the " new " Bill), which had passed
the Commons on the 25th, was read for the first time in
the Lords on the 28 th, passed the second reading on March
1 3th, and was referred to a Committee consisting of the Duke
of Norfolk, the Bishops of Exeter and Carlisle, and Lords
Winchester, Westmoreland, Shrewsbury, Eutland, Sussex,
Pembroke, Montagu, Clinton, Morley, Kich, Willoughby,
and North. They evidently made such alterations on the
Bill as to make that part of it at least which enforced a
radical change in public worship useless for the purpose of
^ Cf. Tomlinson, "Elizabethan Prayer-Book : chronological table of its
enactment," in Church Gazette for Oct. 1906, p. 233.
^ Dublin Review, Jan. 1903, p. 48 n: "Ad quern eundem locum (House
of Commons) isti convenerunt (ut communis fertur opinio) ad numerura
ducentorum virorum, et non decern catholici inter illos sunt reperti."
^ Zurich Letters^ i. 10 (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1842) ; cf. Calendar
of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, preserved principally
in the Archives of Simancas, 1558-67, p. 33 : "To-morrow it (the Bill) goes
to the Upper House, where the bishops and some others are ready to die
rather than consent to it."
392 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
the Government. The clearest account of what the Lords
did is contained in a letter of a person who signs
himself " 11 Schifanoya," which is preserved in the State
Archives in Mantua.^ He says :
" Parliament, which ought to have ended last Saturday,
was prolonged till next Wednesday in Passion Week, and
according to report they will return a week after Easter
(March 26, 1559); which report I believe, because of the
three principal articles the first alone passed, viz. to give
the supremacy of the Anglican Church to the Queen . . .
notwithstanding the opposition of the bishops, and of the
chief lords and barons of this kingdom ; but the Earls of
Arundel and Derby, who are very good Christians, absented
themselves from indisposition, feigned, as some think, to
avoid consulting about such ruin of this realm.
The Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Viscount
Montague and Lord Hastings did not fail in their duty, like
true soldiers of Christ, to resist the Commons, whom they
compelled to modify a hook passed by the Commons forbidding
the Mass to be said or the Communion to be administered (ne
se communicassero) except at the table in the manner of
Edward vi. ; nor were the Divine offices to be performed in
church; priests likewise being allowed to marry, and the
Christian religion and the Sacraments being absolutely
abolished ; adding thereto many extraordinary penalties
against delinquents. By a majority of votes they have
decided that the aforesaid things shall be expunged from
the book, and that the Masses, Sacraments, and the rest of
the Divine offices shall be performed as hitherto. . . . The
members of the Lower House, seeing that the Lords passed
this article of the Queen's supremacy of the Church, but
not as the Commons drew it up, — the Lords cancelling the
aforesaid clauses and modifying some others, — grew angry,
and would consent to nothing, but are in very great con-
troversy." 2
The Lords, induced by the Marian Bishops, had wrecked
the Government's plan for an alteration of religion.
The Queen then intervened. She refused her assent
^ For "11 Schifanoya" and his trustworthiness, cf. Calendar of StaU
Papers, Venetian, 1558-80, Preface viii.
"Ibid. p. 52.
THE ACT OF SUPREMACY 393
to the Bill, on the dexterous pretext that she had doubts
about the title which it proposed to confer upon her — •
Supreme Head of the Church} She knew that Romanists
and Calvinists both disliked it, and she adroitly managed
to make both parties think that she had yielded to the
arguments which each had brought forward. The Spanish
Ambassador took all the credit to himself ; and Sandys was
convinced that EHzabeth had been persuaded by Mr.
Lever, who " had put a scruple into the Queen's head that
she would not take the title of Supreme Head." ^
The refusal of Royal Assent enabled the Government
to start afresh. They no longer attempted to put every-
thing in one Bill. A new Act of Supremacy ,2 in which
the Queen was declared to be " the only supreme governor
of this realm ... as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical
things or causes as temporal," was introduced into the
Commons on April 10th, and was read for a third time on
the 13th. Brought into the Lords on April 14th, it was
read for a second time on the 17th, and finally passed on
April 29th. If the obnoxious title was omitted, all the
drastic powers claimed by Henry viii. were given to
EHzabeth. The Elizabethan Act revived no less than nine
of the Acts of Henry viii.,* and among them the statute
1 Canon Dixon {History of the Church of England, v. 67) declares that
the phrase ** Supreme Head " was not in the Bill. He has overlooked the
fact that Heath in his speech against it quotes the actual words used in the
proposed Act: "I promised to move your honours to consider what this
supremacy is which we go about by virtue of this Act to give to the Queen's
• Highness, and wherein it doth consist, as whether in spiritual government
or in temporal. If in spiritual, like as the words of the Act do import,
scilicet : Supreme Head of the Church of England immediate and next under
God, then it would be considered whether this House hathe authority to
grant them, and Her Highness to receive the same" (Strype, Amials, i. i.
405).
2 Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, pre-
served chiefly in the Archives of Simancas, 1558-80, pp. 37, 44, 50, 55,
66 ; Parker's Correspondence, p. 66 ; Zurich Letters, i. 33.
3 The Act is printed in Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 442.
^ The A<;tsof Henry viii. which were revived were :— 24 Hen. viii. c.
Vl—The Restraint of Appeals, passed in 1533 ; 23 Hen. viii. c. 2Q—The
cmuUti(ynal Restraint of Annates ; 25 Hen. viii. c. Id—ThcSiibinissioiiofthe
394 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
concerning doctors of civil law,^ which contained these
sentences : " Most royal majesty is and hath always been,
by the Word of God, Supreme Head on earth of the
Church of England, and hath full power and authority to
correct, punish, and repress all manner of heresies . . .
and to exercise all other manner of jurisdiction commonly
called ecclesiastical jurisdiction " ; and his majesty is " the
only and undoubted Supreme Head of the Church of
England, and also of Ireland, to whom by Holy Scripture
all authority and power is wholly given to hear and
determine all manner of causes ecclesiastical." Thus the
very title Supreme Head of the Church of England was
revived and bestowed on Elizabeth by this Parliament of
1559. It may even be said that the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction bestowed upon Elizabeth was more extensive
than that given to her father, for schisins were added to
the list of matters subject to the Queen's correction, and
she was empowered to delegate her authority to com-
missioners— a provision which enabled her to exercise her
supreme governership in a way to be felt in every corner
of the land."-^ This Act of Supremacy revived an Act of
King Edward vi., enjoining that the communion should
be given in both " kinds," and declared that the revived
Act should take effect from the last day of Parliament.^
It contained an interesting proviso that nothing should
be judged to be heresy which was not condemned by
canonical Scripture, or by the first four General Councils
" or any of them." *
y The same Parliament, after briefer debate (April 18th
Clergy and Restraint of ApjJeals of 1534 ', 25 Hen. viii. c. 20 — The Ecclesi-
astical Aijpointments Act ; The absolute Restraint of Annates, Elcctiooi of
Bishops, and Letters Missive Act of 1534 ', 25 Hen. viil. c. 21 — Act forbidding
Pa-pal Dispensations and the Payment of Peter's Pence of 1534 ; 26 Hen.
VIII. c. 14 — Suffragan Bishops' Act of 1534 ', and 28 Hen. viii. c. 16 — Act
for the Release of such as have obtained pretended Dispensations from the See of
Rome. These Acts are all, save the last mentioned, printed in Gee and
Hardy, Documents, etc. pp. 178-232, 253-56.
1 Ibid. p. 445. 2 jjyi(^^ p. 447^
3 Ihid. p. 446. ^ Ibid, p. 455.
THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY 395
to 28th), passed an Act of Uniformity which took an
interesting form.^ The Act began by declaring that at the
death of King Edward VI. there ''remained one uniform
order of common service and prayer, and of the administra-
tToEfof sacraments, rites, and ceremonies in the Church of
England, which was set forth in one Book, entitled The
Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacra-
ments and other Rites and Ceremonies in the Church of
England" This Book had been authorised by Act of
Parliament held in the fifth and sixth years of King
Edward vi., and this Act had been repealed by an Act of
Parliament in the first year of the reign of Queen Mary
" to the great decay of the due honour of God, and dis-
comfort of the professors of the truth of Christ's religion."
This Act of Queen Mary was solemnly repealed, and the
Act of King Edward vi., with some trifling alterations, was
restored. In consequence, " all and singular ministers in
any cathedral or parish church " were ordered " to say and
use the Matins, Evensong, celebration of the Lord's
Supper, and administration of each of the sacraments, and
all their common and open prayer, in such order and form
as is mentioned in the said Book, so authorised by
Parliament in the said fifth and sixth years of the reign of
King Edward vi., with one alteration or addition of certain
lessons to be used on every Sunday in the year, and the
form of the Litany altered and corrected, and two sentences
only added in the delivery of the sacrament to the coni-
municants, and none other or otherwise." This meant that
while there might be the fullest freedom of- thought in
the country and a good deal of liberty of expression, there
was to be no freedom of public worship. All Englishmen,
of whatever creed, were to be compelled by lav7 to join in
one common public worship according to the ritual
prescribed. The Act of Parliament which compelled them
to this had no specific Book of Common Prayer annexed to
it and incorporated in it. It simply replaced on the
Statute Book the Act of King Edward vi., and with it
^ The Act is printed in Gee and HaHy, Documents, etc. pp. 458. /f.
396 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
the Second Prayer- Book of King Edward, which with its
rubrics had been " annexed and joined " to that Act ^ —
certain specified alterations in the Book being notified in
the Elizabethan Act.
\ The history of the Elizabethan Prayer-Book is con-
'fessedly obscure. If an important paper called the Device,^
probably drafted by Cecil, embodied the intentions of the
Government, their procedure may be guessed with some
probability. It enumerates carefully, after the manner of
the great Elizabethan statesman, the dangers involved in
any " alteration of religion," and shows how they can be
met or averted. France and Scotland can be treated
diplomatically. Eome may be left unheeded — it is far
away, and its opposition will not go beyond " evil will and
cursing." The important dangers were at home. They
would come from two sides — from the Eomanists backed
by most of the higher clergy ; and from the advanced
Reformers, who would scoff at the alteration which is alone
possible in the condition of the kingdom, and would call it
a " cloaked papistry and a mingle-mangle." Yet both may
be overcome by judicious firmness. The Romanists may
be coerced by penal laws. The danger from the advanced
Reformers may be got over by a carefully drafted Prayer-
Book, made as far as possible to their liking, and enforced
by such penalties as would minimise all objections. There
is great hope that such penalties would " touch but few."
" And better it were that they did suffer than Her
Highness or Commonwealth should shake or be in danger."
The Device suggested that a small committee of seven
divines — all of them well-known Reformers, and most of
them refugees — should prepare a Book " which, being
approved by Her Majesty," might be laid before Parliament.
It was evidently believed that the preparation of the Book
would take some time, for suggestion is made that food,
drink, wood, and coals should be provided for their sus-
^ Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 371.
2 The Device is printed in Strype, Annals, etc. i. ii. 392, and in Gee's
Elizabethan Prayer Book and Ornaments (London, 1902), p. 195.
THE ELIZABETHAN PRAYER BOOK 397
tenance and comfort. There is no direct evidence to show
that the suggested committee met or was even appointed ;
but evidence has been brought forward to show that most
of the theologians named were in London, and were in a
position to meet together and consult during the period
when such a Book would naturally be prepared.^ The
whole matter is shrouded in mystery, and secrecy was
probably necessary in the circumstances. No one knew
exactly what was to take place ; but some change was
universally expected. " There is a general expectation
that all rites and ceremonies will shortly be reformed,"
said Kichard Hilles, writing to Bullinger in the end of
February (1559), "by our faithful citizens and other godly
men in the afore-mentioned Parliament, either after the
pattern which was lately in use in the time of King
Edward the Sixth, or which is set forth by the Protestant
Princes of Germany in the afore-mentioned Confession of
Augsburg." *
I The authorities kept their own counsel, and nothing
(definite was known to outsiders. A Book was presented
to the Commons — The Book of Common Prayer and
Ministration of the Sacraments — on Feb. 16th, at the time
when the first draft of the Supremacy Bill was being
discussed.^ It must have been withdrawn along with
that Bill. The second attempt at a Supremacy Act was
probably accompanied with a Prayer-Book annexed to the
Bill ; and this Prayer-Book was vehemently opposed in the
Lords, who struck out all the clauses relating to it.^
What this Book of Common Prayer was, cannot be exactly
known. Many competent liturgist scholars are inclined
1 Gee's Elizabetlmn Prayer-Book and OrnaimrUs, pp. 76/.
^ Zurich Letters, ii. 17.
* The Jowr?wZ of the House of Commons, i. 54 : "The Bill for the Order
of Service and Ministers in theChun-h " (Feb. 15th) ; The Book of Com-
mon' Prayer and Minutration- of Sacraments (Feb.-16th).
* Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1558-80, p. 45 : "a book passed
by the Commons " ; cf. above, p. 392 ; cf. also Bishop Scot's speech on
the reading of the Bill which was emasculated by the Lords, in Strype's
Annals, i. ii. 408.
398 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
to believe that it was something more drastic than the
Edwardine Prayer-Book of 1552, and that it was proposed
to enforce it by penalties more drastic than those enacted
by the Act of Uniformity which finally passed. They find
the characteristic features of the Book in the well-known
letter of Guest (Geste) to Cecil.^ Such suggestions are
mere conjectures. The Book may have been the Edwardine
Prayer-Book of 1552.
The Government had made slow progress with their
proposed "alteration of religion/' and the Protestant
party were chafing at the delay. Easter was approaching,
and its nearness made them more impatient. Canon law
required everyone to communicate on Easter Day, which
in 1559 fell on the 26th of March, and by a long
established custom the laity of England had gone to the
Lord's Table on that one day of the year. Men were
asking whether it was possible that a whole year was to
elapse before they could partake of the communion in a
Protestant fashion. The House of Commons was full of
this Protestant sentiment. The reactionary proceedings
in the House of Lords urged them to some protest.^ A
Bill was introduced into the Lower House declaring that
" no person shall be punished for now using the religion
used in King Edward's last year." It was read twice and
engrossed in one day (March 15th), and was read a third
time and passed on March 18th.^ It does not appear to
have been before the Lords ; but it was acted on in a
curious way. A proclamation, dated March 22nd, declares
that the Queen, " with the assent of Lords and Commons,"
^ Dr. Gee rejects the idea that Guest's letter had anything to do with the
Book passed by the Commons and rejected by the Lords ; cf. his Elizabethan
Prayer-Book and Ornaments, pp. 32 ff. ; and for a criticism of Dr. Gee,
TomlinsoD, The Elizabethan Prayer-Book and Ornaments; a Review , p. 12.
Guest's letter is printed by Dr. Gee in his Elizabethan Prayer-Book, etc.
p. 152, and more accurately by Mr. Tomlinson in his tract, Why was the
First Prayer-Book of Edward VI. rejected ?
2**11 Schifanoya " reports the wrath of the Commons: They "grew
angry, and would consent to nothing, but are in very great controversy "
{Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1558-80, p. 52) ; cf. p. 392.
^ Journal of the House of Conunmis, i. 57.
THE ELIZABETHAN PRAYER BOOK 399
in the " present last session," has revived the Act of King
Edward vi. touching the reception of the Communion in
both " kinds," and explains that the Act cannot be ready
for Easter. It proceeds : " And because the time of Easter
is so at hand, and that great numbers, not only of the
noblemen and gentry, but also of the common • people of
this realm, be certainly persuaded in conscience in such
sort as they cannot be induced in any wise to communicate
or receive the said holy Sacrament but under both kinds,
according to the first institution, and to the common use
both of the Apostles and of the Primitive Church ... it
is thought necessary to Her Majesty, by the advice of
sundry of her nobility and commons lately assembled in
Parliament," to declare that the statute of Edward is in
force, and all and sundry are commanded to observe tlie
provisions of the statute.^ What is more, the Queen
acted upon her proclamation. The well-informed " Schi-
fanoya," writing on March 28th, says that the Government
"during this interval (i.e. between March 22nd and March
28th) had ordered and printed a proclamation for every
one to take the communion in hoth "kinds" (sub utrrf que
specie). He goes on to say that on Easter Day " Her
Majesty appeared in chapel, where Mass was sung in
English, ciccordiiig to the use of her brother, King Edimrd,
and the communion received in both ' kinds,' kneeling."
The chaplain wore nothing " but the mere surplice " (la
seiu'pUce cotta).'^ The news went the -round of Europe.
^Professor Maitland {English Historical Review, July 1903, p. 527 '/t.)
and Father J. H. Pollen [Dublin Review, January 1903) think that this
proclamation of the 22nd of March was never issued ; but " II Schilanoya "
can hardly refer to any otlier.
2 " On Easter Day, Her Majesty appeared in the chapel, where Mass was
sunf in English, according to the use of her. brother, Kin^ Edward, and the
communion was received in both 'kinds,' kneeling, facendoli.il sacerdote la
credenza del corpo et sangue prima ; nor did he wear anything but the mere
surplice {la semplice cotta), having divested himself of the vestments
(li paramenti) in which he had sung Mass ; and thus Her Majesty was
followed by many Lords both of the Council and others. Since that day
things have returned to their former state, though unless the Alniiglity
stretch forth His arm a relapse is expected. These accursed preachers, who
400 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
Elizabeth had at last declared herself unmistakably on
the Protestant side.
Easter had come and gone, and the religious question
had not received final settlement. The authorities felt
that something must be done to counteract the speeches
of the Romanist partisans in the Lords,^ So, while
Parliament was sitting, a conference was arranged between
Eoman Catholic and Protestant divines. It seems to have
been welcomed by both parties. Count Feria, the Spanish
Ambassador, declared that he had something to do with it.
He was anxious that the disputation should be in Latin,
that the arguments should be reduced to writing, and that
each disputant should sign his paper. He was overruled
so far as the language was concerned. The authorities
meant that the laity should hear and understand. The
three questions debated were : — Whether a " particular
Church can change rites and ceremonies ; Whether the
services of public worship must be conducted in Latin ;
Whether the Mass is a propitiatory sacritice." The confer-
ence was held at Westminster on March 31st, in presence
of the Privy Council, the Lords and Commons, and the
"multitude." Great expectations were cherished by both
parties in anticipation, and when the Romanist divines
withdrew on points of procedure, their cause suffered in the
have come from Germany, do not fail to preach in their own fashion, both
in public and in private, in such wise that they ])eisuaded certain rogues to
forcibly enter the chuich of St. Mary-le-Bow, in the middle of Cheapside,
and force the shrine of the most Holy Sacrament, breaking the tabernacle,
and throwing the most precious consecrated body of Jesus Christ to the
ground. They also destroyed the altar and the images, with the pall {palio)
and church linen (tovalie), breaking everything into a thousand pieces.
This happened this very night, which is the third after Easter. . . . Many
persons have taken the communion in the usual manner, and things continue
as usual in the churches" {Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 155S-S0,
p. 57).
^ The speeches of Abbot Feckenham and Bishop Scot, reprinted in Gee's
Elizabethan Prayer-Book, etc. pp. 228^., represent the arguments used in the
Lords. Scot's speech was delivered on the third reading of tlie Act of Uni-
formity, quite a month after the Westminster conference, and Feckenham's
way have been made at the same time ; still they show the arguments of
the Romanists.
THE ELIZABETHAN PRAYER BOOK 401
popular estimation. Two of the Bishops were sent to the
Tower " for open contempt and contumacy " ; and others
seem to have been threatened.^
Parliament reassembled after the Easter recess and
passed the Act of Supremacy in its third form, and the
Act of Uniformity, which re-enacted, as has been said, the
revised Prayer-Book — that is, the Second Book of King
Edward vi. with the distinctly specified alterations. The
most important of these changes were the two sentences
added to the words to be used by the officiating minister
when giving the communion. The clauses had been in
the First Prayer-Book of Edward VI.
While in the Second Prayer-Book of King Edward
the officiating minister was commanded to say while giving
the Bread :
" Take and eat this, in rememhrance that Christ died for
thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanks-
(jiving;'
and while giving the Cup, to say :
" Drink this in rememhrance that Christ's blood was shed
for thee, and be thankful ; "
the words were altered in the Elizabethan book to :
" The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, ivhich was^ivenfor
thee, preserve thy body and soid unto everlasting life. Take
and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and
feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving ; "
" The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for
thee, 'preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. I>rink
this in remembrance that Christ's Blood ivas shed for thee, and
be thankful!'
The additions in no way detracted from the Evangelical
doctrine of the Sacrament. They rather brought the
^ Calendar of Letters and Stale Papers relating to English Affairs, 2)re-
served principally in the Archives of Simancas, 1558-67, pp. 45, 46-48 ;
Zurich Letters, i. 13/.; Strji^e's Annals, etc. i. i. 128-40, I. ii. 466 ; Calendar
of State Papers, Venetian, 155S-S0, pp. 64, 65.
26**
402 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
underlying thought into greater harmony with the doctrine
of the Keformed Churches. But they have had the effect
of enabling men who hold different views about the nature
of the rite to join in its common use.
When the Act of Uniformity was passed by Parliament,
the advanced Eeformers, who had chafed at what appeared
to them to be a long delay, were contented. They, one
and all, believed that the Church of England had been
restored to what it had been during the last year of the
reign of Edward VL ; and this was the end for which they
had been striving, the goal placed before them by their
friend and adviser, Henry BuUinger of Zurich.^ Their
letters are full of jubilation.^
Yet there were some things about this Elizabethan
^"King Edward's reformation satisfieth the godly": Bullinger to
TJtenhovius {Zurich Letters, 2nd series, p. 17 n. ; Strype, Annals, i. i. 259).
2 May 20th, Cox to Weidner : " The sincere religion of Christ is there-
fore established among us in all parts of the kingdom, just in the same
manner as it was formerly promulgated under our Edward of blessed memory "
{Zurich Letters, i. 28).
May 21st, Parkhurst to Bullinger : ** The Book of Common Prayer, set
forth in the time of King Ed Ward, is now again in general use throughout
England, and will be everywhere, in spite of the struggles and opposition
of the pseudo-bishops " {Zurich Letters, i. 29).
May 22nd, Jewel to Bullinger: "Religion is again placed on the same
footing on which it stood in King Edward's time ; to which event I doubt
not but that your own letters and those of your republic have powerfully
contributed " {Zurich Letters, i. 33).
May 23rd, Grindal to Conrad Hubert: "But now at last, by the bless-
ing of God, during the prorogation of Parliament, there has been published
a proclamation to banish the Pope and his jurisdiction altogether, and to
restore religion to that form which we had in the time of Edward vi."
{Zurich Letters, ii. 19).
Dr. Gee seems to beg an important historical question when he says that
these letters 'must have been written before the writers knew that the Prayer-
Book had been actually altered in more than the three points mentioned in
the Act of Uniformity. Grindal, writing again to Hubert on July 14th,
when he must have known everything, says: "The state of our Church
(to come to that subject) is pretty much the same as when I last wrote to
you, except only that what had heretofore been settled by proclamations
and laws with respect to the reformation of the churches is now daily
being carried into eii'ect. " Cf. Gee' ^ Elizabethan Prayer Book, etc. p. 104 n.,
for the actual differences between the Edwardine Book of 1552 and the
Elizabethan Book of 1559.
THE ELIZABETHAN PRAYER BOOK AND VESTMENTS 403
settlement which, if interpreted as they have been by
some ecclesiastical historians, make it very difficult to
understand the contentment of such men as Griudal, Jewel,
and Sandys. " Of what was done in the matter of
ornaments,'' says Professor Maitland, " by statute, by the
rubrics of the Book, and by Injunctions that the Queen
promptly issued, it would be impossible to speak fairly
without lengthy quotation of documents, the import of
which became in the nineteenth century a theme of
prolonged and inconclusive disputation." ^ All that can
be attempted here is to mention the principal documents
involved in the later controversy, and to show how they
were interpreted in the life and conduct of contemporaries.
(The Act of Uniformity had restored, with some triiiiiig
differences clearly and definitely stated, Edward vi.'s
.Prayer-Book of 1552, and therefore its rubrics.^ It had
^ Cambridge Modem History, ii. 570.
^ The rubric explaining kneeling at the communion had not the authority
of Parliament, but only ot the Privy Council, and was not included. .
The rubric of 1552 regarding ornaments, which had the authority of
Parliament and was re-enacted by the Act of Uniformity of 1559, was : " And
here is to be noted that the minister at the time of communion, and at all
other times in his ministration, shall use neither alb, vestment, nor co})e ;
but being archbishop or bishop, he shall have and xccar a rochet : and being
priest or deacon, he shall have and tvear a surplice only."
This is the real ornanunts rubric of the Elizabethan settlement, and
appears to be such in the use and wont of the Church of England^ from 1559
to 1566, save that copes were used occasionally.
The proviso in the Act of Uniformity (1559)was : "Such ornaments of the
Church and of the ministers thereof shall be retained and be in use as was in
this Church of England by authority of Parliament in the seco7ic? year of
the reign of King Edward vi., until other order shall be therein taken by
the authority of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of her commissioners
appointed and authorised under the Great Seal of England for causes
ecclesiastical, or of the metropolitan of this realm."
The ornaments in use in the second year of Edward VI. are stated in the
rubrics of the first Prayer-Book of King Edward (1549) :
"Upon the day, and at the time appointed for the ministration of the
Holy Communion, the Priest that shall execute the holy ministry shall put
upon him the vesture appointed for that ministration, that is to say : a white
Albe plain, with a vestment or Cope. And where there be many Priests or
Deacons, there so many shall be ready to help the Priest in the ministration as
shall be requisite : and shall have upon them likewise the vestures appointed
fur their ministry, that is to say, Albes with tunicles." At the end there
i
404 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
at the same time contained a proviso saying that the
ornaments sanctioned by the authority of Parliament in
the second year of Edward vi. were " to be retained and
be in use " " until further order shall therein be taken/'
Men like Grindal and Jewel took no exception to this
proviso, which they certainly would have done had they
believed that it ordained the actual use in time of public
worship, of the ornaments used in the second year of King
Edward. The interpretation they gave to the proviso is
seen from a letter from Sandys to Parker (afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury), written two days after the Act
of Uniformity had passed the Lords. He says :
"The last book of service has gone through with a
proviso to retain the ornaments which were used in the
first and second year of King Edward, until it please the
Queen to take other order for them. Our gloss upon the
text is that we shall not be enforced to use them, but that
others in the meantime shall not convey them away, but
that they may remain for the Queen." ^
Sandys and others understood the proviso to mean
that recalcitrant clergy like the Warden of Manchester,
who carried his consecrated vestments to Ireland, were not
to make off with the ornaments, and that churchwardens
or patrons were not to confiscate them for their private
use. They were property belonging to the Queen, and to
be retained until Her Majesty's pleasure was known. The
whole history of the visitations goes to prove that Sandys'
interpretation of the proviso was that of its framers.
When the Prayer-Book was actually printed it was
found to contain some differences from the Edwardine
is another rubric : **Upon Wednesdays and Fridays, the English Litany shall
be said or sung in all places after such form as is appointed by the King's
Majesty's Injunctions ; or as is or shall be otherwise appointed by His High-
ness. And though there be none to communicate with the Priest, yet these
days (after the Litany ended) the Priest shall put upon him a plain Albe or
surplice, with a cope, and say all things at the Altar appointed to be said at
the celebration of the Lord's Supper, until after the offertory."
^ Parker Correspondence, p. 65,
THE ELIZABETHAN PRAYER BOOK AND VESTMENTS 405
Book of 1552 besides those mentioned in the Act as the
only ones to be admitted ; and early editions have not
always the same changes. But the one thing of import-
ance was a rubric which, on what seems to be the only
possible interpretation, enjoins the use in public worship of
the ornaments (i.e. the vestments) in use in the second
year of King Edward.^ How this rubric got into the
Prayer-Book it is impossible to say. It certainly was not
enacted by the Queen " with assent of Lords and Commons."
We have no proof 'that it was issued by the Privy Council.-
^ The rubric is : "And liere it is to be noted that the minister at the
time of communion and at all other times in his ministrations, shall use
such ornaments in the church as ^vere in use by authority of Parliament in
the second year of the reign of King Edward vi., according to the Act of
Parliament set in the beginning of this Book."
- Dr. Gee {Elizabethan Ornaments, etc. p. 131) thinks that there can be
no reasonable doubt that the rubric was recorded on the authority of the
Privy Council. "The Privy Council had certainly inserted the Black
Rubric in 1552, as their published Acts attest, but all the records of the
Privy Council from 13th May 1559 until 28th May 1562 have disappeared."
The precedent cited is scarcely a parallel case. The Black Rubric was an
explanation ; the Rubric of 1559 is almost a contradiction in terms of the
Act which restores the Prayer-Book of 1552. If I may venture to express
an opinion, it seems to me most likely that the rubric was added by the
Queen herself, and that she inserted it in order to be able to " liedge." It
is too often forgotten that the danger which overshadowed the earlier years
of Elizabeth was the issue of a papal Bull proclaiming her a heretic and
a bastard, and inviting Henry ii. of France to undertake its' executiou.
The Emperor would never permit such a Bull if Elizabeth could show
reasonable pretext that she and her kingdom held by the Lutlieran type
of Protestantism. An excommuuication pronounced in such a case
would have invalidated his own position, which he owed to the votes of
Lutheran Electors. In the middle of the sixteenth century the difference
between the different sections of Christianity was always estimated in
the i)opular mind by differences in public worship, and especially in the
celebration of the Lord's Supper. All over Germany the Protestant was
distinguished from the Romanist by the fact that .he partook of the com-
munion in both "kinds." Elizabeth had definitely ranged herself on the
Protestant side from Easttr Day. 1559 ; and a more or less ornate ritual
could never explain away the significance of this fact. The great difference
between the Lutherans and the Calvinists to the popular mind was tlmt the
former retained and the latter discarded most of the old ceremonial. Luther
says expressly: "Da lassen wyr die Messgewand, altar, liechter noch
bleyben " (Daniel, Codex Lilurgicus Ecclesia: Lxitherancr, p. 105); and
crosses, vestments, lights, and aii altar appear in regular Lutheran fashion
406 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
The use and wont of the Church of England during the
period of the Elizabethan settlement was as if this rubric
had never existed. It is directly contradicted by the
thirtieth Injunction issued for the Eoyal Visitation of
1559.^ It was not merely contemptuously ignored by
the Elizabethan Bishops ; they compelled their clergy, if
compulsion was needed, to act in defiance of it.
Contemporary sources abundantly testify that in the
earlier years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the English
clergy in their ministrations scarcely ever wore any
ecclesiastical garment but the surplice ; and sometimes not
even that. The Advertisements'^ of 1566, which almost
all contemporary notices speak of as prescribing what had
been enjoined in the Injunctions of 1559, were drafted for
the purpose of coercing clergymen who were in the habit
of refusing to wear even the surplice, and they enjoined
the surplice only, and the cope ^ in cathedrals. In the
■whenever the Queen wished to place herself and her land under the shield
of the Augsburg Peace. This rubric was a remarkably good card to play
in the diplomatic game.
^ XXXth Injunction of 1559 : " Item, Her Majesty being desirous to
have tlie prelacy and clergy of this realm to be had as well in outward
reverence, as otherwise regarded for the worthiness of their ministries, and
thinking it necessary to have them' known to the people in all places and
assemblies, both in the chi'rch and without, and thereby to receive the
honour and estimation due to the special messengers and ministers of
Almighty God, wills and commands that all archbishops and bishops, and
all other that be called or admitted to lu-eaching or ministry of the
sacraments, or that be admitted into any vocation ecclesiastical, or into any
society of leaining in either of the Universities or elsewhere, shall use and
wear such seemly habits, garments, and such square caps as were most
commonly and orderly received in the latter year of the reign of King
Edward VI. ; not meaning thereby to attribute any holiness or special
worthiness to the said garments, but as St. Paul writeth : ' Omnia decenter et
secundum ordinem fiant' (1 Cor. xiv. cap.)." Cf. Gee's Elizahethan Prayer
Book and Ornaments {howdon, 1902) ; Tomlinson, The Prayer Book, Articles
and Homilies (London, 1897) ; Parker, The Ornaments Bich'ic (Oxiord,
1881). ...
^ The Advertisements are printed in Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p.
467 ; the Injunctions, at p. 417.
^ Copes were used in the cathedrals and sometimes in collegiate churches
in the years between 1559 and 1566, when it was desired to add some
ni.ignificence to the service ; but it ought to be remembered that the cope
THE ELIZABETHAN PRAYER BOOK AND VESTMENTS 407
Visitation carried out in accordance with the directions in
the Injunctions, a clean sweep was made of almost all the
ornaments which were not merely permitted but ordered in
the proviso of the Act of Uniformity and the Eubric of
1559 on the ordinary ritualistic interpretation of these
clauses. The visitors proceeded on a uniform plan, and
what we hear was done in one place may be inferred
as the common practice. The Spanish Ambassador (July
or August 1559) wrote to his master: "They are now
carrying out the law of Parliament respecting religion with
great rigour, and have appointed six visitors. . . . They
have just taken the crosses, images, and altars from St.
Paul's and all the other London churches." ^ A citizen of
London noted in his diary : " The time before Bartholomew
tide and after, were all the roods and Maries and Johns,
and, many other of the church goods, both copes, crosses,
censers, altar cloth, rood cloths, books, banners, banner
stays, wainscot and much other gear about London,
burnt in Smithfield." ^ What took place in London
was done in the provinces. At Grantham, " the vestments,
copes, albs, tunicles, and all other such baggages were
defaced and openly sold by the general consent of the
whole corporation, and the money employed in setting up
dests in the church, and making of a decent connuunion
table, and the remnant to the poor." ^
It is true that we find complaints on the part of men
like Jewel of ritualistic practices which they do « not like:
but these in almost every case refer to worship in the
royal chapel. The services there were well known, and
both friends and foes of the Eeformation seemed to take
it for granted that what was the fashion in the royal
was never a sacrificial vestment. It was originally the cappa of the earlier
Middle Ages — the mediaeval greatcoat. Large churches were cold places,
the clergy naturally wore their greatcoats, when officiating, and the liomely
garment grew in magnificence. It ne\'er had a doctrinal significance like
the chasuble or casula.
^ Calendar of State Papers, Spajiish, 1558-67,'\>. 89.
^ Machyn's Diary (Camden Society, London, 1844), p. 108.
^ Peacock'^s Church Furid'iire, p. 87.
408 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
chapel would soon extend to the rest of the realm.'
Historians have usually attributed the presence of crosses,
vestments, lights on the altar, to the desire of the Queen
to conciliate her Komanist subjects, or to stand well with
the great Eoman Catholic Powers of Europe. It is quite
likely that the Queen had this thought in her mind.
Elizabeth was a thrifty lady, and liked to bring down
many birds with the one stone. But the one abiding
thought in the mind of the astute Queen was to stand well
with the Lutherans, and to be able, when threatened with
papal excommunication, to take shelter under the segis of
the Peace of Augsburg.
When the Government had secured the passing of the
Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, they were in a position
to deal with the recalcitrant clergy. Eleven of the
English Episcopal Sees had been vacant at the accession of
Elizabeth, among them that of the Primate ; for Cardinal
Pole had died a few hours after Mary. In the summer
and autumn of 1559 the sixteen Bishops were called upu^.
to sign the Oath of Supremacy, in which the papal rule
over the Church of England was abjured, and the Queen
declared to be the Supreme Governor of the Church. All
the Bishops, more or less definitely, refused to take the
oath ; although three were at first doubtful. They were
deprived, and the English Church was practically without
Bishops.2 Some of the deprived Bishops of King Edwar^Vs
time survived, and they were restored. Then came dis-
cussion about the manner of appointing new ones. Some
would have preferred a simple royal nomination, as in
Edward's time ; but in the end it was resolved that the
^ Caleiidar of Slate Pap/rs, Spanish, 1558-67, p. 105 : "The crucifixes
and vestments tiiit were burnt a month ago publicly are now set up again
in the royal chapel, as they soon will be all over the kingdom, unless,
which God forbid, there is another change next week. They are doing it
out of sheer fear to pacify the Catholics ; but as forced favours are no sign
of alfection, they often do more liarra than good." Cf. Zurich Letters, i.
63, etc.
- Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, pre-
served principally in the Archives of Simancas, i. pp. 76, 79.
THE " ALTERATION OF RELIGION COMPLETED 409
appointment should be nominally in the hands of the
Deans and Chapters according to mediaeval rule, with the
proviso, however, that the royal permission to elect had
first to be given, and that the person named in the " leave
to elect " should be chosen. Then the question of conse-
cration gave rise to some difficulties ; but these were got
over in ways which were deemed to be sufficient. Matthew
Parker, after more than one refusal, was nominated and
consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Lists of clerical
persons suitable for promotion were prepared for the
Queen,^ and the other Sees were gradually filled. The
Elizabethan episcopate, with the exception of the few
Edwardine Bishops, was an entirely new creation. A large
number of the Deans and members of the Cathedral
Chapters had also refused to sign the Oath of Supremacy ;
they were deprived, and others who were on the lists were
appointed in their place. The inferior clergy proved to
be much more amenable, and only about two hundred were
in the end deprived. The others all accepted the " altera-
tion of religion " ; and the change was brought about
quietly and without the riotings which had accompanied
the alterations made in the days of Edward, or the whole-
sale deprivations which had followed upon those made by
Queen Mary — when almost one-third of the beneficed
clergy of the Church of England had been removed from
their benefices. A similar passive acquiescence was seen in
the introduction of the new Book of Common Prayer, and
in the fulfilment of the various orders for the removal of
images, etc. The great altars and crucifixes were taken
away, and the pictures covered with whitewash, without
any disturbances to speak of.
The comparative ease with which the " alteration of
religion " was effected was no doubt largely due to the
increased Protestant feeling of the country ; but the tact
and forbearance of those who were appointed to see the
changes carried out counted for something ; and perhaps
^ Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, Edward VI., Mary^ Mizabeth,
i. 130.
410 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
the acquiescence of the Eoman Catholics was due to the
fact that they had no great leader, that they did not
expect the Elizabethan settlement to last long, and that
they waited in expectation that one or other of the two
Eomanist Powers, France or Spain, would interfere in
their behalf. The religious revolution in Scotland in
1560 saved the Elizabethan settlement for the time; and
Philip of Spain trifled away his opportunities until a
united England overthrew his Armada, which came thirty
years too late.
The change was given effect to by a Eoyal Visitation.
Endand was divided into six districts, and lists bTvTsitors
were drawn up which included the Lords Lieutenants of
the counties, the chief men of the districts, and some lawyers
and clergymen known to be well affected to the Reformation.
They had to assist them a set of Injunctions, modelled
largely, not entirely, on those of Edward VL, drafted and
issued by royal command.^ The members of the clergy
were dealt with very patiently, and explanations, public
and private, were given of the Act of Supremacy wliich
made it easier for them to accept it. The Elizabethan
Bishops were also evidently warned to deal tenderly w^ith
stubborn parish clergymen ; they would have been less
patient with them if left to themselves. One, Bishop
Best, Bishop of Carlisle, is found writing to Cecil about
his clergy, that " the priests are wicked impes of Anti-
christ," for the most part very ignorant and stubborn ;
another, Pilkington, the Bishop of Durham, in describing
the disordered state of his diocese, declared that " like
St. Paul, he has to fight with beasts at Ephesus"; and a
third, Scory, Bishop of Winchester, wrote that he was
much hindered by justices of the peace who were Eoman
Catholics, and that when certain priests who had refused to
take the oath were driven out of Exeter and elsewhere, they
were received and feasted in the streets with torchlights.^
1 The Injunctions are printed in Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc. p. 417.
2 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Edward VI.,
Mory, and Elizabeth, i. \^\^. 180. 183, 187.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 41;
Elizabeth's second Parliament was very much more
Protestant than the first, and insisted that the Oath of
Supremacy must be taken by all the members of the
House of Commons, by all lawyers, and by all school-
masters. The Convocation of 1563 proved that the clergy
desired to go mucli further in the path of Eeformation
than the Queen thought desirable.
They clearly wished for some doctrinal standard, and
Archbishop Parker had prepared "and laid before Con-
vocatToh"a revised edition of the Forty-two Articles which
had defined the theology of the Church of England in the
.last year of King Edward vi.^ The way had been pre-
pared for the issue of some authoritative exposition of the
doctrinal position of the Elizabethan Church by the Declara-
tion of the Principal Articles of Religion — a series of eleven
articles framed by the Bishops and published in 1561
(March), which repudiates strongly the Eomanist doctrines
of the Papacy, private Masses, and the propitiatory sacrifice
in the Holy Supper. The Spanish Ambassador, who had
heard of the meetings of the Bishops for this purpose,
imagined that they were preparing articles to be presented
to the Council of Trent on behalf of the Church of
England.2 xhe Archbishop's draft was revised by Con-
vocation, and was "diligently read and sifted" by the
Queen herself before she gave her consent to the
authoritative publication of the Articles;
These Thirty-nine Articles expressed the doctrine of
the Eeformed or Calvinist as distinguished from the
Evangelical or Lutheran form of Protestant doctrine, and
the drstinction lay mainly in the views which the respective
Confessions of the two Churches held about the Presence
of Christ in the Sacrament of the Holy Supper. By this
time (1562) Zwinglianism, as a doctrinal system, not as
1 For the history of these Articles; see Havdwick, A History of the
Articles of Religion; to wJiich is added a Series of Documents from A.D.
1536 to A.D. 1615, etc. (Cambridge, 1859).
2 Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, pre-
servrd 'principally in the Archives hf Simancas, i. 190.
4l2
THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
an ecclesiasti(ial policy, had disappeared ; ^ and the three
theories of the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament had
all to do with the Presence of the Body of Christ and
not with a spiritual Presence simply. The Romanist
theory, transubstantiation, was based on the mediaeval
conception of a substance existing apart from all accidents
of smell, shape, colour, etc., and declared that the
" substance " of the Bread and of the Wine was changed
into the " substance " of the Body and Blood of Christ,
while the accidents or qualities remained the same — the
change being miraculously effected by the priest in conse-
crating the communion elements. The Lutheran explana-
tion was based upon a mediaeval theory also — on that of
the ubiquity or natural omnipresence of the " glorified "
Body of Christ. The Body of Christ, in virtue of its
ubiquity, was present everywhere, in chairs, tables, stones
flung through the air (to use Luther's illustrations), and
therefore in the Bread and in the Wine as everywhere
else. This ordinary presence became an efficacious sacra-
mental Presence owing to the promise of God. Calvin
had discarded both mediaeval theories, and started by
asking what was meant by substance and what by presence ;
he answered that the substance of anything is its power
(vis), and its presence is the immediate application of
its power. Thus the substance of the crucified Body of
Christ is its power, and the Presence of the crucified Body
of Christ is the immediate application of its power ; and
the guarantee of tlie application of the power is the
promise of God received by the believing communicant.
By discarding the Lutheran thought that the substance of
the Body of Christ is something extended in space, and
accepting the thought that the main thing in substance
is power, Calvin was able to think of the substance of the
Body of Christ in a way somewhat similar to the mediaeval
conception of " substance without accidents," and was able
to show that the Presence of Christ's Body in the sacrament
could be accepted and understood without the priestly
^ The Conseimis Tigurinus (1549) dates the disappearance.
^HE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 413
miracle, which he and all Protestants rejected. Hence it
came to pass that Calvin could teach the Real Presence
of Christ's Body in the Sacrament of the Supper without
having recourse to the mediaeval doctrine of " ubiquity,"
which was the basis of the Lutheran theory. They both
(Calvin and Luther) insisted on the Presence of the Body
of Christ ; but the one (Luther) needed the theory of
"ubiquity" to explain the Presence, while the other
(Calvin) did not need it. But as both discarded the
priestly miracle while insisting on the Presence of the
Body, the two doctrines might be stated in almost the same
words, provided all mention of " ubiquity " was omitted.
Calvin could and did sign the Augsburg Confession ;
but he did not read into it what a Lutheran would
have done, the theory of " ubiquity " ; and a Calvinist
statement of the doctrine, provided only " ubiquity " was
not denied, might be accepted by a Lutheran as not
differing greatly from his own. Bishop Jewel asserts
again and again in his correspondence, that the Elizabethan
divines did not believe in the theory of " ubiquity," ^ and
many of them probably desired to say so in their articles
of religion. Hence in the first draft of the Thirty-
nine Articles presented to Convocation by Archbishop
Parker, Article XXVIII. contained a strong repudiation of
the doctrine of " ubiquity," which, if retained, would have
made the Articles of the Church of England more . anti-
Lutheran than even the second Helvetic Confession. The
clause was struck out in Convocation, probably because
it was thought to be needlessly offensive to the German
Protestants.^ The Queen, however, was not satisfied with
* The Zurich Letters, 1558-79, First Series (Parker Society, Cambridge,
1842), pp. 123, 127, 135, 100, 139. Bishop Jewel, writing to Peter Martyr
(p. 100), says : '' As to matters of doctrine, we have pared everything away to
the very quick, and do not differ from your doctrine by a nail's breadth "
(Feb. 7th, 1562) ; and Bishop Horn, writing to Bvillinger (Dec. 13th, 1563,
i.e. after the Queen's alterations), says, : " IFe have throughout England the
same ecclesiastical doctrine as yourselves" {ibid. p. 135).
2 The deleted clause was: '^Christus in cce/um asccndens, corpori suo
immortal ilatcni dedit, natiiram non abstulit, humance enim naturce veritatem
414 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
what her divines had done, and two important interferences
with the Articles as they came from Convocation are
attributed to her. The first was the addition of the
words : and authoritie in controversies offayth, in Article XX.,
which deals with the authority possessed by the Church,
The second was the complete suppression for the time
being of Article XXIX., which is entitled, Of the wicked
which do not eate the Body of Christe in the use of the Lordes
Supper, and is expressed in terms which most Lutherans
would have been loath to use.
\ The Queen's action was probably due to political
reasons. It was impor1,ant in international politics for a
Protestant Queen not yet securely seated on her throne
to shelter herself under the shield which a profession of
Lutheranism would give. The German Lutherans had
won legal recognition within the Empire at the Diet of
Augsburg in 1555 ; the votes of two Lutheran Electors
had helped to place the Emperor on his throne ; and the
Pope dared not excommunicate Lutheran Princes save at
the risk of offending the Emperor and invalidating all his
acts. This had been somewhat sternly pointed out to
him when he first threatened to excommunicate Elizabeth,
and the Queen knew all, the difficulties of the papal
position. One has only to read an account of a long
conversation with her, reported by the Spanish Ambassador
to his master (April 29th, 1559), to see what use the
" wise Queen with the eyes that could flash " ^ made
of the situation. The Ambassador had not obscurely
threatened her with a papal Bull declaring her a bastard
and a heretic, and had brought home its effects by citing
the case of the King of Navarre, whose kingdom was taken
{juxta Scripturas), perpetuo retinet, quam uno et definito loco esse, et non in
multa, vel omnia siinul loca diffundi oportet. Quum igitur Christus in
ccelum S2chlatus, ibi usque ad finem seculi permansurus, atque inde, non
aliunde {ut loquitur A ngustiniis) venturus sit, adjudicavdnm vivos et mortos,
non debet quisquam fidelium, et carnis eius, et sanguinis, realem et coyporealem
{iii Icquuntur) piTescibtiam in Encharistia vel credere, vel profiteri.^^
^ " Cette reine est extremfiiient sage, et a des yeux terribles. " Calendar
oj State Papers^ Domestic Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1595-97, p. xxi.
THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 415
from him by Ferdinand of Spain acting as the Pope's
agent, and Ehzabeth had played with him in her usual
way. She had remarked casually " that she wished the
Augsburg Confession to be maintained in her realm,
whereat," says the Count de Feria, " I was much surprised,
and found fault with it all I could, adducing the argu-
ments I thought might dissuade her from it. She then
told me it would not be the Augsburg Confession, but
something else like it, and that she differed very little
from us, as she believed that God was in the Scwrament of
the Eucharist, and only dissented from three or four things
in the Mass. After this she told me that she did not wish
to argue about religious matters." ^ She did not need to
argue ; the hint had been enough for the baffled Ambassador.
Article XXIX. was suppressed, and only Thirty-eight
Articles were acknowledged publicly. The papal Bull of
excommunication was delayed until 1570, when its
publication could harm no one but Elizabeth's own
Eomanist subjects, and the dangerous period was tided
over safely. When it came at last, the Queen was not
anathematised in terms which could apply to Lutherans,
but because she personally acknowledged and observed " the
impious constitutions and atrocious mysteries of Calvin,"
and had commanded that they should be observed by her
subjects.^ Then, when the need for politic suppression
was past. Article XXIX. was published, and the Thirty-
nine Articles became the recognised doctrinal standard of
the Church of England (1571).
What the Queen's own doctrinal behefs were no one can
tell ; and she herself gave the most contrary descriptions
when it suited her policy. The disappearance and re-
appearance of crosses and candles on the altar of the royal
chapel were due as much to the wish to keep in touch
with the Lutherans as to any desire to conciliate the
Queen's Eomanist subjects.
^ Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, pre-
served ^principally in the Archives of Simancas, i. 61, 62.
- Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1558-SO, p. 449.
416 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
The Convocation of 1563 had other important matters
before it. Its proceedings showed that the new Elizabethan
clergy contained a large number who were in favour of
some drastic changes in the Prayer-Book and in the Act
of Uniformity. Many of them had become acquainted with
and had come to like the simplicity of the Swiss worship,
thoroughly purified from what they called " the dregs of
Popery " ; and others envied the Scots, " who," wrote Park-
hurst to Bullinger (Aug. 23rd, 1559), "have made greater
progress in true religion in a few months than we have
done in many years." ^
Such men were dissatisfied with much in the Prayer-
Book, or rather in its rubrics, and brought forward pro-
posals for simplifying the worship, which received a large
measure of support. It was thought that all organs
should be done away with ; that the ceremony of " cross-
ing " in baptism should be omitted ; that all festival days
save the Sundays and the " principal feasts of the Church "
should be abolished ; — this proposal was lost by a majority
of one in the Lower House. Another motion, leaving it to
the option of communicants to receive the Holy Supper
either standing, sitting, or kneeling, as it pleased them, was
lost by a very small majority. Many of the Bishops them-
selves were in favour of simplifying the rites of the Church ;
and five Deans and twelve Archdeacons petitioned against
the use of the surplice. The movement was so strong
that Convocation, if left to itself, would probably have
purified the Church in the Puritan sense of the word.
But the Queen had all the Tudor liking for a stately cere-
monial, and she had political reasons, national and inter-
national, to prevent her allowing any drastic changes.
She was bent on welding her nation together into one, and
she had to capture for her Church the large mass of people
who were either neutral or who had leanings to Eomanism,
or at least to the old mediaeval service. The Council
of Trent was sitting ; Papal excommunication was always
threatened, and, as above explained, Lutheran protection
^ The Zurich Ldicrn, etc., First Series, p. 91,
DISCIPLINE 417
and sympathy were useful. The ceremonies were retained,
the crucifixes and lights on the altars were paraded in the
chapel royal to show the Lutheran sympathies of the
Queen and of the Church of England. The Eeforming
Bishops, with many an inward qualm,^ had to give way ;
and gradually, as the Queen had hoped, a strong Conservative
instinct gathered round the Prayer- Book and its rubrics.
The Convocation of 1563 witnessed the last determined
attempt to propose any substantial alteration in the public
worship of the English people.
At the same Convocation a good deal of time was
spent upon a proposed Book of Discipline, or an authorita-
tive statement of the English canon law. It is prcbable
that its contents are to be found in certain " Artwles for
government and order in the Church, exhibited to he permitted
ly authority ; hut not allowed" which are printed by Strype -
from Archbishop Parker's MSS. Such a book would have
required parliamentary authority, and the Parliament of
1563 was too much occupied with the vanishing protec-
tion of Spain and with the threatening aspect of France
and Scotland. The marriage of the Queen of Scots with
Darnley had given additional weight to her claims on the
English throne; and it was feared that the English
Piomanists might rise in support of the legitimate heir.
Parliament almost in a panic passed severe laws against
all recusants, and increased the penalties against all who
refused the oath of allegiance or who spoke in " support of
the authority of the Bishop of Eome. The discipline of
the Church was left to be regulated by the old statute of
Henry viiL, which declared that as much of the mediaeval
canon law as was not at variance with the Scriptures and
the Acts of the English Parliament was to form the basis
of law for the ecclesiastical courts. This gave the P.i shop's
^The Zurich Letters, etc., First Series, p. 74 ; cf. 55, 63, 64. 6<3, 68.
100, 129, 135. Bishop Jewel called clerical dress the "rolics of the
Amorites" (p. 52), and wished that he could get rid of the suriilice (p. 100) ;
and "the little silver cross" in the Queen's -chapel was to him an ill-
omened thing (p. 55) ; of. Strype, AmuUs, etc. i. i. 260.
2 Annals, etc. i. ii. 562.
27**
418 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
officials who presided over the ecclesiastical courts a very
free hand ; and under their manipulation there was soon
very little left of the canon law — less, in fact, than in the
ecclesiastical courts of any other Protestant Churches. For
these officials were lawyers trained in civil law and imbued
with its principles, and predisposed to apply them whenever
it was possible to do so.
The formulation of the Thirty-nine Articles in the Con-
vocation of 1563 may be taken as marking the time when
the " alteration of religion " was completed. The result,
arrived at during a period of exceptional storm and strain,
has had the qualities of endurance, and the Church of
England is at present what the Queen made it. It was the
Royal Supremacy which secured for High Church Anglicans
the position they have to-day. The chief ' features of the
settlement of religion were :
1. The complete repudiation within the realm and
'Church of England of the authority of the Bishop of
Eome. All the clergy and everyone holding office under
the Crown had to swear to this repudiation. If they
refused, or were recusants in the language of the day, they
lost their offices and benefices ; if they persisted in their
refusal, they were liable to forfeit all their personal
property ; if they declined to take the oath for a third
time, they could be proclaimed traitors, and were liable to
the hideous punishments which the age inflicted for that
crime. But Elizabeth, with all her sternness, was never cruel,
and no religious revolution was effected with less bloodshed.
2. The sovereign was made the supreme Governor of
jthe Church of England ; and that the title differed in name
only from that assumed by Henry viii. was made plain in
the following ways :
j (a) Convocation was stript of all independent legisla-
tive action, and its power to make ecclesiastical laws and
regulations was placed under strict royal control.^
1 The Advertisements of Archbishop Parker, issued and enforced on the
authority of the Primate, to which the royal imprimatur was more than
once refused, may be looked on as au exception. For these rules, meant
THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 419
(h) Appeals from all ecclesiastical courts, which were
themselves actually, if not nominally, under the presidency
of civil lawyers, could be made to royal delegates who
might be laymen ; and these delegates were given very full
powers, and could inflict civil punishments in a way which
had not been permitted to the old mediaeval ecclesiastical
courts. These powers raised a grave constitutional question
in the following reigns. The royal delegates became a
Court of High Commission, which may have been modelled
on the Consistories of the German Princes, and had some-
what the same powers.
3. One uniform ritual of public worship was prescribed
for all Englishmen in the Book of Common Prayer with its,
rubrics, enforced by the Act of Uniformity. No liberty of'
worship was permitted. Any clergyman who deviated
from this prescribed form of worship was liable to be
treated as a criminal, and . so also were all those who
abetted him. No one could, under penalties, seek to avoid
this public worship. Every subject was bound to attend
church on Sunday, and to bide the prayers and the preach-
ing, or else forfeit the sum of twelvepence to the poor.
Obstinate recusants or nonconformists might be ex-
communicated, and all excommunicated persons were
liable to imprisonment.
I 4. Although it was said, and was largely true, that there
[was freedom of opinion, still obstinate heretics were hable
'to beheld guilty of a capital offence. On the other hand,
the Bishops had little power to force heretics to stand
a trial, and, unless Parliament or Convocation ordered it
otherwise, only the wilder sectaries were in anj danger.^
Protestant England grew stronger year by year. The
debased copper and brass coinage was replaced gradually by
honest gold and silver.^ Manufactures were encouraged.
to control the Church in the vestiarian -controversy, see Gee and Hardy,
Documents, etc. p. 467 ; and for the vexed question of their authority,
Moore, History of the Reformation, p. 266.
1 Maitland, Cambridge Modern History, ii. 569 ff.
2 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Edward VI..
Mary, and EHzahdh, 1547-SO, p. 159.
420 THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH
Merchant adventurers, hiring the Queen's ships, took an
increasing share in the world-trade with Elizabeth as a
partner.^ Persecuted Huguenots and Flemings settled in
I great numbers in the country, and brought with them their
' thrift and knowledge of mechanical trades to enrich the
^ land of their adoption ; ^ and the oppressed Protestants of
France and of the Low Countries learnt that there was a
land beyond the sea 'ruled by a " wise young Queen" which
might be their city of refuge, and which was ready to aid
them, if not openly, at least stealthily. England, formerly
unarmed, became supplied "more abundantly than any
other country with arms, munitions, and artillery." Sound
money, enlarged trade, growing wealth, and an increasing
sense of security, were excellent allies to the cause of the
Protestant Religion.
So long as Mary of Scotland was in Holyrood and able
to command the sympathy, if not the allegiance, of the
Enc^lish Roman Catholics, the throne of Elizabeth was
never perfectly secure ; but the danger from Scotland was
minimised by the jealousy between Catherine de' Medici and
her daughter-in-law, and the Scottish Protestant Lords
could always be secretly helped. When Philip ii. of Spain,
in his slow, hesitating way, which made him always miss the
turn of the tide, at length resolved to aid Mary to crush h6r
rebels at home and to prosecute her claims on England, his
interference had no further consequences than to afford
Elizabeth an honourable pretext for giving effectual assist-
ance in the conflict which drove Mary from her throne,
and made Scotland completely and permanently Protestant.^
1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, etc. i>. 247.
- Ibid. p. 177 ; Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English
Affairs, preserved principally in the Archives of Simancas, i. 77, 118, 119.
^ The story of Francis Yaxley, Mary's agent, of his dealings with
Philip II., of Philip's subsidy to Scotland of 20,000 crowns, of its loss by
shipwreck, and how the money was claimed as treasure-trove by the Duke of
Northumberland, Roman Catholic and a pledged supporter of Mary as he
was, may be traced in the Calendar of Letters and Slate Papers relating to
English Affairs, prescrvtd 2^Tincipally in the Archives of Simancas, pp. lix,
499, 506, 516, 523, 546, 557 ; and how the Pope also gave aid in money,
p. 559.
BOOK V.
ANABAPTISM AND SOCINIANISM.
CHAPTER I.
KEVIVAL OF MEDIiEVAL ANTI-ECCLESIASTICAL
MOVEMENTS.
The revolt of Luther was the occasion for the appearance —
the outbreak, it might be called — of a large amount of
irregular independent thinking upon religion and theology
which had expressed itself sporadically during the whole
course of the Middle Ages. The great difference between
the thinkers and their intellectual ancestors who were at
war with the mediaeval Church life and doctrine, did not
consist in the expression of anything essentially new, but
in the fact that the Renaissajice had introduced a profound
contempt for the intellectual structure of ecclesiastical
dogma, and that the whole of the sixteenth century was
instinct with the feeling of individuality and the pride of
personal existence. The old thoughts were less careful to
accommodate themselves to the recognised modes of theo-
logical statement, they took bolder forms of expression,
presented sharper outlines, and appeared in more definite
statements.
Part of this thinking scarcely belongs to ecclesiastical
history at all. It never became the intellectual basis of
an institution ; it neither stirred nor moulded the lives of
masses of men. The leaders of thought remained solitary
thinkers, surrounded by a loose fringe of followers. But
421
422 MEDIEVAL ANTI-ECCLESIASTICAL MOVEMENTS
as there is always something immortal in the forcible ex-
pression of human thought, their opinions have not died
altogether, but have affected powerfully all the various
branches of the Christian Church at different periods and
in divers ways. The old conceptions, somewhat disguised,
perhaps, but still the same, reappear in most systems of
speculative theology. It therefore demands a brief notice.
The greater portion of this intellectual etfervescence,
however, did not share the same fate. Menno Simons,
aided, no doubt, by the winnowing fan of persecution, was
able to introduce order into the wild fermenting elements
of Anabaptism, and to form the Baptist Church which has
had such an honourable history in Europe and America.
Fausto Sozzini did the same for the heterogeneous mass of
anti-Trinitarian thinking, and out of the confusion brought
the orderly unity of an institutional life.
This great mass of crude independent thought may be
roughly classified as Mystic, or perhaps Pantheist Mystic,
Anabaptist, and anti-Trinitarian ; but the division, so far
as the earlier thinkers go, is very artificial. The groups
continually overlap ; many of the leaders of thought might
be placed in two or in all three of these divisions. What
characterised them all was that they had little sense of
historical continuity, cared nothing for it, and so broke
with the past completely; that they despaired of seeing
any good in the historical Church, and believed that it
must be ended, as it was impossible to mend it ; and that
bhey all possessed a strong sense of individuality, beheving
the human soul to be imprisoned when it accepted the con-
finement of a common creed, institution, or form of service
unless of the very simplest kind.
/T. Pantheistic Mysticism was no new thing in Christianity.
As early as the sixth century at least, schools of thought
may be found which interpreted such doctrines as the
Trinity and the Person of Christ in ways which led to
what must be called Pantheism ; and if such modes of dis-
solving Christian doctrines had not a continuous succession
within the Christian Church, they were always appearing.
PANTHEISTIC MYSTICS 423
They were generally accompanied with a theory of an
" inner light " which claimed either to supersede the Scrip-
tures as the Eule of Faith, or at least to interpret them. The
Scriptures were the husk which might be thrown away
when its kernel, discovered by the " inner light," was once
revealed. The Schwenkfelds, Weigels, Giordano Brunos of
the sixteenth century, who used what they called the
" inner light " in somewhat the same way as the Council of
Trent employed dogmatic tradition, had a long line of
ancestry in the mediaeval Church, and their appearance at
the time of the Eeformation was only the recrudescence
of certain phases of mediaeval thought. But, as has been
said, such thinkers were never able, nor perhaps did they
wish, to form their followers into a Church ; and they, be-
long much more to the history of philosophy than to an
ecclesiastical narrative. They had no conception whatever
of religion in the Eeformation sense of the word. Their
idea of faith was purely intellectual — something to be fed
on metaphysics more or less refined.
By far the most numerous of those sixteenth century
representatives of mediaeval nonconformists were classed
by contemporaries under the common name of Anabaptists
or Katabaptists, because, from 1526 onwards, they all, or
most of them, insisted on re-baptism as the sign of belong-
ing to. the brotherhood of believers. They were scattered
over the greater part of Europe, from Sweden in the north
to Venice in the south, from England in thd west to
Poland in the east. The Netherlands, Germany, — southern,
north-western, and the Ehineland, — Switzerland, the Tyrol,
Moravia, and Livonia were scenes of bloody persecution
endured w^ith heroic constancy. Their leaders flit across
the pages of history, courageous, much -enduring men, to
whom the w^orld was nothing, whose eyes were fixed on
the eternal throne of God, and who lived in the calm con-
sciousness that in a few hours thev micrht be fastened to
the stake or called upon to endure more dreadful and
more prolonged tortures, — men of every varying type of
character, from the gentle and pious young Humanist Hans
424 MEDIEVAL ANTI-ECCLESIASTICAL MOVEMENTS
Denck to Jan Matthys the forerunner of the stern Cami-
sard and Covenanter. No statement of doctrine can
include the beliefs held in all their innumerable groups.
Some maintained the distinctive doctrines of the mediaeval
Church (the special conceptions of a priestly hierarchy, and
of the Sacraments being always excluded) ; others were
Lutherans, Calvinists, or Zwinglians ; some were Unitarians,
and denied the usual doctrine of the Person of Christ ; ^ a
few must be classed among the Pantheists. All held some
doctrine of an " inner light " ; but while some sat very loose
to the letter of Scripture, others insisted on the most
literal reading and application of Biblical phraseology.
They all united in maintaining that true Christians ought
to live separate from the world (i.e. from those who were
not rebaptized), in communities whose lives were to be
modelled on the accounts given in the New Testament of
the primitive Christians, and that the true Church had
nothing whatever to do with the State.
Curiously enough, the leaders in the third group, the
anti-Trinitarians, were almost all Italians.
The most outstanding man among them, distinguished
alike by his learning, his pure moral life, a distinct vein of
piety, and the calm courage with which he faced every
danger to secure the propagation of his opinions, was the
Spaniard Miguel Servede (Servetus),^ who was burnt at
^ For example, the Nikohhurger Articles say : "Cristus sei in der erb-
sunden entphangen ; Cristus sei nit Got sunder ein prophet, dem das
gesprech oder wort Gottes bevollen worden " (Cornelius, Geschickte des Miln-
sterischen Aufruhrs, ii. 279, 280).
2 Servede was born in 1511, in the small town of Tudela, which then
belonged to Aragon. He came from an ancient family of jurists, and was
at first destined to the profession of law. His family came originally
from the township of Villanova, which probably accounts for the fact that
Servede sometimes assumed that name. He was in correspondence with
Oecolampadius (Heusgen) in 1530 ; and from the former's letters to and
about Servede, it is evident that the young Spaniard was then fully per-
suaded about his anti-Trinitarian opinions. No publisher in Basel would
print his book, and he travelled to Strassburg. When his first theological
book became known, its sale was generally interdicted by the secular authori-
ties. His great book, which contains his whole theological thinking, was
published in 1553 vithout name of place or author. Its full title is:
ANTI-TRINITARIANS 425
Geneva in 1553. He was very ranch a man by himself.
His whole line of thought separated him from the rest of
the anti-Trinitarian group associated with the names of
the Sozzini. He reached his position through a mystical
Pantheism — a course of thought which one might have ex-
pected from a Spaniard. He made few or no disciples, and
did not exert any permanent influence.
The other anti-Trinitarians of the first "rank were
all cultured Italians, whom the spirit of the Eenaissance
prompted to criticise and reconstruct theology as they
found it. They were all men who had been driven to
reject the Eoman Church because of its corruptions and
immoralities, and who had no conception of any other
universal Christian society. Men of pure lives, pious
after their own fashion, they never had any idea of what
lay ^t the root of the Eeformation thought of what real
religion was. It never dawned upon them that the sum
of Christianity is the God of Grace, manifest in Christ,
accessible to every believing soul, and unwavering trust
on man's part. Their interest in religion was almost
exclusively intellectual. The Eeformers had defined the
Church as the fellowship of believers, and they had said
that the marks of that fellowship were the preaching of
Christianismi Restitutio, TotiiLS ecdesice apostoUcce ad sua limina vocatio, in
integ7'um restituta cognitione Dei, fidet Christi, justificatimiis nos/rce, regene-
rationis baptisimi et ccence domini Dianducationis, Restituto deniquc
nobis regno ccelesti, Bdbylonis impice captiviiate solvAa, et Anttchristo eum
S'uis penitus destrudo. Reentered into correspondence with Calvin, offered
to come to Geneva to explain his position ; but the Reformer plainly indicated
that he had no time to bestow upon him. The account of his trial, con-
demnation, and burning at Geneva is to be found in the Corpus Rcforma-
tm^iiin, xxxvi. 120 ff, Tl)e sentence is found on p. 825 : " Icy est este parle
du proces de Michiel Servet prisonnier et veu le spnmiairre dycelluy, le
raport de ceux esquelz Ion a consulte et considere les grands erreurs et
blaffemes — est este arreste II soit condampne a estre mene en Champel et la
estre brusle tout vyfz et soit exequente a demain et ses livres brusles." This
trial and execution is the one black blot on the character of Calvin. He
was by no means omnipotent in Geneva at the time ; but he thoroughly ap-
proved of what was done, and had expressed the opinion tliat if Servede came
to Geneva, he would not leave it alive . "Nam si venerit modo valeat mea
auctoritas, virum exirc nunquam patiar" {Corpus Rcf. xi. 283).
426 MEDI.^VAL ANTI-ECCLESIASTICAL MOVEMENTS
the Word and the right use of the sacraments — the means
through which God manifests Himself to men, and men
manifest their faith in God. These men never ap-
prehended this ; the only idea which they seemed able
to have of the Church was a school of definite and
correct opinions. Compelled to flee from their native
land, they naturally took refuge in Switzerland or in the
Grisons. It is almost pathetic to see how they utterly
failed to understand the men among whom they found
themselves. Eeformation to them was a criticism and
reconstruction of theology ; they were simply carrying
the criticism a little further than their new neighbours.
They never perceived the real gulf fixed between them and
the adherents of the Eeformation.
They were all highly educated and cultivated men —
individual units from all parts of Italy. Camillo Eenato,
who proclaimed himself an Anabaptist, was a Sicilian.
Gentili came from Calabria ; Gribaldo from Padua ;
Bernardino Occhino, who in his later days joined the
band, and the two Sozzini from Siena. Alciato was a
Piedmontese. Blandrata (Biandrata), the most energetic
member of the group save Fausto Sozzini, belonged to a
noble family in Saluzzb wjiich had long been noted for
the protection it had afforded to poor people persecuted
by the Church. They were physicians or lawyers ; one,
Gentili, was a schoolmaster.
The strong sense of individuality, which seems the
birthright of every Italian, fostered by their life within
their small city republics, had been accentuated by the
Eenaissance. The historical past of Italy, and its political
and social condition in the sixteenth century, made it
impossible for the impulse towards reform to take any
other shape than that of individual action. The strength
and the impetus which comes from the thought of fellow-
man, fellow-believer, and which was so apparent in the
Eeformation movements beyond the Alps and in the
Jesuit reaction, was entirely lacking among these Ee-
formers in Italy. In that land the Empire had never
ANTI-TRINITARIANS 427
regained its power lost under the great Popes, Gregory
VII. and Innocent III. The Eomish Church presented
itself to all Italians as the only possible form under
which a wide-spreading Christian Society could be
organised. If men rejected it, personal Christian life alone
remained. The Church dominated the masses unprepared
by any such conception of ecclesiastical reform as in-
fluenced the people in Germany and Switzerland. Only
men who had received some literary education were
susceptible to the influences making for Reformation.
They were always prevented by the unbroken power of
the agencies of the Church from organising themselves
publicly into congregations, and could only meet to ex-
change confidences privately and on rare occasions.^ .We
hear of several such assemblies, which invariably took the
form of conferences, in which the members discussed and
communicated to each other the criticisms of the mediaeval
theology which solitary meditation had suggested to them.
They were much more like debating societies than the
beginnings of a Church. Thus we hear of one at
Vincenza,2 ^i^ 1546, where about forty friends met,
among whom was Lelio Sozzini, where they debated such
doctrines as the Satisfaction of Christ, the Trinity, etc.,
and expressed doubts about their truth. It was inevitable
that such men could not hope to create a popular move-
ment towards Reformation in their native land, and also
that they should be compelled to seek safety beyond the
bounds of Italy. They fled, one by one, across the Alps.
In the Grisons and in Reformed Switzerland they found
little communities of their countrymen who had souglit
1 Ritschl, A critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justif cation and
Eeconciliatim (Eng. trans., Edin. 1872), p. 295.
2 "Circa annum 1546 iustituerat (Laelius Socinus) cum sociis suis
iisdem Italis, quorum numerus quadragenarium excedebat, in Veneta ditione
(apud Vincentiam) collegia coUoquiaque de rcligioue, in quibus potissiraum
do<,Tiiata vulgaria de Trinitate ac Christi Satisfactione bisque siniilia in
dubiumrevocabant" {Bihl. Antit. p. 19—1 liave taken tlie quotation from
Fock, Der Socinianismus nach seiner Sielhtng in cler Gcsamm.tcntifkkluiig
dcs eh ri^l lichen Grisf'S. etc., Kiel, 1817, i. 132).
428 MEDIEVAL ANTI-ECCLESIASTICAL MOVEMENTS
shelter there, and their presence was always followed
by dissensions and by difficulties with the native
Protestants.
Their whole habits of life and thought were not of the
kind calculated to produce a lasting Christian fellowship.
Their theological opinions, which were not the outcome
of a new and living Christian experience, but had been
the result of an intellectual criticism of the mediaeval
theology, had little stability, and did not tend to produce
unity. The execution of Servede and the jealousy which
all the Eeformed cantons of Switzerland manifested
towards opinions in any way similar to those of the
learned Spaniard, made life in Switzerland as unsafe
as it had been in Italy. They migrated to Poland and
Transylvania, attracted by the freedom of thought existing
in both lands.
Poland, besides, had special attractions for refugees
from Italy. The two countries had long been in intimate
relationship. Italian architects had designed the stately
buildings in Crakau and other Polish cities, and the
commercial intercourse between the two countries was
great. The independence and the privileges of the
Polish nobles secured them from ecclesiastical interference,
and both Calvinism and Lutheran ism had found many
adherents among the aristocracy. They, like the Eoman
patricians of the early centuries, gave the security of
their halls to their co-religionists, and the heads of the
Eomanist Church chafed at their impotence to prevent
the spread of opinions and usages which they deemed
heretical. In Transylvania the absence of a strong
central government permitted the same freedom to the
expression of every variety of religious opinion.
The views held by the group of anti-Trinitarians
were by no means the same. They reproduced in
Poland the same medley of views we find existing in the
end of the third century. Some were Sabellians, others
Adoptianists, a few were Arians. Perhaps most of them
believed in the miraculous birtli of our Lord, and held as
ANTI-TRINITARIANS 429
a consequence that He ought to be adored ; but a strong
minority, under the leadership of Francis Davidis, re-
pudiated the miraculous birth, and refused to worship
Christ (non-ador antes). For a time they seem to have
lived in a certain amount of accord with the members of
the Eeformed communities. A crisis came at the Polish
Diet of 1564, and the anti-Trinitarians were recognised
then to be a separate religious community,- or ecclesia
minor. This was the field in which Fausto Sozzini
exercised his commanding intellect, his genius for
organisation, and his eminently strong will. He created
out of these jarring elements the Socinian Church.
The Anabaptist and the Socinian movements require,
however, a more detailed description.
CHAPTEK 11.
ANABAPTISM.^
The old monotonous mode of describing Anabaptism has
almost entirely disappeared with the modern careful exami-
nation of sources. It is no longer possible to sum up the
^ Sources : Magna Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum (Coloiiiae Agrippinae,
1618), xiii. 299-307 ; Sebastian Franck, Chronica, Zeitbuch and Ges-
cMchthihel (Augsburg, 1565), pt. iii. ; Hans Denck, Von dcr waren Lieh,
etc. (1527 — republished by the Menonitische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Elkhart,
Indiana, U.S.A.) ; Bouterwek, Zur Literatur und Geschichte der Wieder-
tdufer (Bonn, 1864 — gives extracts from the rarer Anabaptist writings such
as the works of Hiibmaier) ; Ausbiind etlicher schoner christlieher geseng, etc.
(1583); Liliencron, "Zur Liederdichtung der Wiedertaufer " (in the
Abhandlungen der konig. Bair. Akad. der Wissenschaften Philosophische
Klasse, 1878) ; von Zezschwitz, Die Katachismen der Waldenser und
Boviischen Bruder (Erlangen, 1863) ; Beck, Geschichtsbilcher der
Wiedertaufer in Oestreich-Ungern, 1526 bis 1785 (Vienna, 1883), printed
in the Fontes Rer. Austr. Diplom. el Acta, xliii. ; Kessler, Sabbata, ed.
by Egli and Schoch (St. Gall, 1902) ; Bullinger, Der Wiedertdufcren
Ursprung, Seden, etc. (Zurich, 1560) ; Egli, Actensammlung zur Geschichte,
der Ziiricher Reformation (Zurich, 1879), Die Ziiricher Wiedertaufer
(Zurich, 1878) ; Leopold Dickius, Adversus im2nos Anabaptistarv.m
errores (1533) ; Cornelius, Berichte der Angenzeugen ilber das Aliinsterische
Wiedertduferreich, forming the 2nd vol. of the Geschichtsquellen des
Bisthums Munster (Miinster, 1853) and tlie Beilage in his Geschichte des
Miinsterischen Aufruh7's {Lei[^z\g, 1855); Detmer's edition of Kerssenbroch,
Anabaptistici furoris Monasterium inclitam IVestphalia metropolim evertentis
historica narratio, forming vols. v. and vi. of the Geschichtsquellen des
Bisthttms Munster (Minister, 1899, 1900) ; Chroniken der deutschen Stddte,
Nurnberg Chronik, vols. i. and iv.
Later Books t Keller, Geschichte der Wiedertaufer und ihres Beichs
zu Munster (Munster, 1880), Ein Apostel der Wiedertaufer, Hans Denck
(Leipzig, 1882), and Die Reformation und die dlteren Reformparteicn
(Leipzig, 1885 — Keller is apt to make inferences beyond his facts) ; Heath,
Anabaptism, frmn its rise at Zwickau to its fall at Miinster, 1521-1536
(London, 1895) ; Belfort Bax, Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists (London,
430
THE ANABAPTISTS 431
movement in four stages, beginning with the Zwickau
prophets and ending with the catastrophe in Munster, or
to explain its origin by calling it the radical side of
the Eeformation movement.^ It is acknowledged by
careful students to have been a very complicated affair,
to have had roots buried in the previous centuries, and to
have had men among its leaders who were distinguished
Humanists. It is now known that it spread over Europe
with great rapidity, and attracted to itself an enormously
larger number of adherents than had been imagined.
It is impossible within the limits of one brief chapter
to state and criticise the various theories of the origin and
roots of the movement which modern investigation has
1903) ; Rorich, "Die Gottesfreunde und die Winkeler am Oberrhein" (in
Zeitschrift fiir hist. Theol. i. 118 ff., 1840) ; Zxir Geschichte der strasshurg-
ischen Wiedertmtfer [Zeitschrift fiir. hist. Theol. xxx. 1860) ; S.B. ten Gate,
Geschjedenis der doopgezinden in Grouingen, etc., 2 vols. (Leewarden, 1843) ;
Geschiedenis der doopgezinden in Friesland (Leewarden, 1839) ; Geschiedenis
der doopgezinden in Holland en Guelderland, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1847) ;
Tileman van Braght, Het hloedig Toeneel of Martelaars Spiegel der
doopgesinde (Amsterdam, 1685) ; E. B. Underbill, Martyrology of the
Churches of Christ commonly ealled Baptist (translated from Van Bragbt) ;
H. S. Burrage, A History of the Anibaptist^ in Switzerland (founded on
Egli's researcbes, Pbiladelpbia, 1881) ; Newman, A History of Anti-
Fedobapf.is7n (Pbiladelpbia, 1897) ; Detmer, Wilder aus den religiosen und
sozialen Unruhen in Miinster wdhrend des 16 Jahrhunderts : i. Johann van
Leiden (Munster, 1903), ii. Bernhard Rothmann (1904), iii. Ueher die
Anfi'assxing von der Ehe und die Durchfuhrung der Vielweiberei in Miinster
wdhrend der Tauferherrschaft (1904); Heatb, Contemporary Review, lix.
389 ("Tbe Anabaptists and tbeir Englisb Descendants"), Ixii. 880
("Hans Denck tbe Baptist), Ixvii. 578 (Early Anabaptism, wli^t it meant,
and wbat we owe to it), Ixx. 247 ("Living in Gonnnunity — a sketcb ot
Moravian Anabaptism"), 541 ("The Arcbetype of the Pilgrim's
Progress''), Ixxii. 105 ("The Arcbetype of tbe Holy War").
^ Tbe difference in treatment may be seen at a glance by comparing the
articles on Anabaptism in the second (1877) and in the third (1896)
edition of Herzog's Realencyclopadie fiir protestantische Theolw/ie und
Kirche. Some eminent historians, however, still cling to old ideas ; for
example, Edward Armstrong, The Emperor Charles V. (London, 1902), who
justifies the treatment his hero meted out to the Anabaptists — roasting
them to death before slow fires — by • saying that "whenever they
momentarily gained tbe upper band, tliey applied the practical methods
of modern Anarchism or Nihilism to tbe professed principles of
Communism " (ii. 342). No one who has examined tbe original sources
could have penned such a sentence.
432 ANABAPTISM
suggested. All that can be done is to set down succinctly
the conclusions reached after a tolerably wide examination
of the sources — admitting at the same time that more in-
formation must be obtained ere the history of the move-
ment advances beyond the controversial stage.
It is neither safe nor easy to make abrupt general
statements about the causes or character of great popular
movements. The elements which combine to bring them
into being and keep them in existence are commonly as
innumerable as the hues which blend in the colour of a
mountain side. Anabaptism was such a complicated move-
ment that it presents peculiar difficulties. As has been said,
it had a distinct relation to two different streams of
mediaeval life, the one social and the other religious — the
revolts of peasants and artisans, and the successions of the
Brethren.
From the third quarter of the fifteenth century social
uprisings had taken place almost every decade, all of them
more or less impregnated with crude religious beliefs.
They were part of the intellectual and moral atmosphere
that the " common man," whether in town or country
district, continuously breathed, and their power over him
must not be lost sight of. The Reformation movement
^ quickened and strengthened these influences simply because
^ it set all things in motion. It is not possible, therefore, to
draw a rigid line of separation between some sides of the
Anabaptist movement and the social revolt ; and hence it
is that there is at least a grain of truth in the conception
ithat the Anabaptists were the revolutionaries of the times
ipf the Eeformation.
On the other hand, there are good reasons for asserting
that the distinctively religious side of Anabaptism had little
to do with the anarchic outbreaks. It comes in direct
succession from those communities of pious Christians who,
on the testimony of their enemies, lived quiet God-fearing
lives, and believed all the articles in the Apostles' Creed ;
but who were strongly anti-clerical. They lived unobtrus-
ively, and rarely appear in history cave when tlie chronicle
THE MEDIEVAL BRETHREN 433
of some town makes casual mention of their existence, or
when an Inquisitor ferreted them out and records their so-
called heresies. Their objections to the constitution and
ceremonies of the mediaeval Church were exactly those of
the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century ; and if we do not
find a universal repudiation of infant baptism, there are
traces that some did not approve of it. They insisted that
the service ought to be in the vulgar tongue ; they objected
to all the Church festivals ; to all blessing of buildings,
crosses, and candles ; they alleged that Christ did not give
His Apostles stoles or chasubles ; they scoffed at excom-
munications. Indulgences, and dispensations ; they declared
that there was no regenerative efficacy in infant baptism ;
and they were keenly alive to all the injunctions of Christian
charity — it was better, they said, to clothe the poor than
to expend money on costly vestments or to adorn the walls
of Churches, and they kept up schools and hospitals for
lepers. They met in each other's houses for public worship,
which took the form of reading and commenting upon the
Holy Scriptures.^
As we are dependent on very casual sources of informa-
tion, it is not surprising that we cannot irace their continu-
ous descent down to the period of the Eeformation ; but
we do find in the earlier decades of the sixteenth century
notices of the existence of small praying communities,
which have all the characteristics of those recorded in the
Inquisitors' reports belonging to the end of the fourteenth
or beginning of the fifteenth centuries. They appeared in
Basel m 1514, in Switzerland in 1515, in Mainz in 1518,
and in Augsburg somewhat earlier.^ By the year 1524
similar " praying circles " were recorded as existing in
France, in the Netherlands, in Italy, in Saxony, in
Franconia, at Strassburg, and in Bohemia. They used a
common catechism for the instruction of their young
^ Magva Bihliotheca Veterum Pato'um {Colonise. Agrippinae, 1618), xiii. 299,
300, 307 (the Summa of Raiverus Sacchonus). Gf. i. 152.
^ These are the dates at which town chronicles incidentally show that
such communities existed, not the dates of tlieir origin.
28**
434 ANABAPTISM
people which was printed in French, German, Bohemian,
and perhaps Italian. In Germany, the Bible was the
German Vulgate — a version retained among the Anabaptists
long after the publication of Luther's. They exhibited
great zeal in printing and distributing the pious literature
of the Friends of God of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. Many of them taught Baptist views, though
the tenets were not universally accepted, and they were
— already called Anabaptists or Katabaptists — a term of
reproach. Some of their more distinguished leaders were
pious Humanists, and their influence may perhaps be seen
in the efforts made by the Brethren to print and distri-
bute the Defensor Pads of Marsiglio of Padua.
This quiet Evangelical movement assumed a more
definite form in 1524. Before that date the associations
of pious people acted like the Pietists of the seventeenth
or like the Wesleyans of the eighteenth century. They
_ associated together for mutual edification ; they did not
obtrusively separate themselves from the corrupt or sloth-
ful Church. But in June 1524, delegates representing a
very wide circle of " praying assemblies " or Readings met
at Waldshut, in the house of Balthasar Htibmaier,^ bringing
their Bibles with them, to consult how to organise their
Christian living on the lines laid down in the New Testa-
ment. No regular ecclesiastical organisation was formed.
The Brethren resolved to separate from the Papal Church ;
they published a Directory for Christian living, and drew
up a statement of principles in which they believed.
Amongst other things, they protested against any miraculous
efficacy in the Sacraments in general, and held that Baptism
is efficacious only when it is received in faith. This led
afterwards to the adoption of Baptist views. A second
conference was held at Augsburg in 1526, which probably
dates the time when adult-baptism became a distinctive
belief among all the Brethren. This conference suggested
a General Synod which met at Augsburg in 1527 (Aug.),
and included among its members, delegates from Munich,
1 Vedder, Balthazar Hiihmair.r (New York, 1905).
ORGANISATION 435
Franconia, Ingolstadt, Upper Austria, Styria, and Switzer-
land. There they drew up a statement of doctrinal truth,
which is very simple, and corresponds intimately with what
is now taught among the Moravian Brethren. Their Hymn-
book ^ does not bear any traces of the errors in doctrine
usually attributed to them. Its chief theme is the love of
God awakening our love to God and to our fellow-men.
Instead of infant baptism they had a ceremony in which
the children were consecrated to God. Baptism was re-
garded as the sign of conversion and of definite resolve to
give one's self up to the worship and service of God. It
was administered by sprinkling ; the recipient knelt to re-
ceive it in the presence of the congregation. The Holy
Supper was administered at stated times, and always after
one or two days of solemn preparation. Their office-
bearers were deacons, elders, masters and teachers, or
pastors. They distinguished between pastors who were
wandering evangelists and those who were attached to
single congregations. The latter, who were ordained by the
laying on of hands, alone had the right to dispense the
Sacraments. All the deacons, elders, and pastors belonging
to communities within a prescribed district, selected from
among themselves delegates who formed their ecclesiastical
council for the district, and this council elected one of the
pastors to act as Bishop or Superintendent. It was the
Superintendent who ordained by laying on of hands. The
whole of the Brethren were governed ecclesiastically by a
series of Synods corresponding to those in the Presbyterian
Cliurches. This organisation enabled the Anabaptists to
endure the frightful persecution which they were soon to
experience at the hands of the papal and Lutheran State
Churches.
The chief leaders were Balthasar Hiibmaicr and Hans
Denck. Hiibmaier was a distinguished scliolar. He be-
came, at an unusually early ago. Professor of theology at
^ Liliencron, "Zur Liederdichtungder Wiedertaiifer," inthe Tranmctioiis
of the Konigl. Bair. Akad. der Wissenschajten, Philosopnisch-hUtorische
klasse, 1877.
436 ANABAPTISM
Ingolstadt (1512); he was Eector of the famous High
School in that city (1515); and Cathedral preacher at
Kegensburg (Eatisbon) (1516). In 1519, feeling that he
could no longer conscientiously occupy such positions, he
retired to the little town of Waldshut. Hans Denck was
a noted Humanist, a member of the " Erasmus circle " at
Basel, and esteemed the most accurate Greek scholar in the
learned community. Conrad Grebel, another well-known
Anabaptist leader, also belonged to the " Erasmus circle,"
and was a member of one of the patrician families of Zurich.
Like Hubmaier and Denck, he gave up all to become an
evangelist, and spent his life on long preaching tours.
These facts are sufficient to refute the common statement
that the Anabaptists were ignorant fanatics.
Perhaps Denck was the most widely known and highly
esteemed. In the summer of 1523 he was appointed
Eector of the celebrated Sebaldus School in Niirnberg.
--In the end of 1524 he was charged with heresy, and
along with him Jorg Penz, the artist, the favourite pupil
of Albert Dlirer, and four others. Denck was banished
from the city, and his name became well known. This
trial and sentence was the occasion of his beginning that
life of wandering evangelist which had among other
results the conferences in 1526 and 1527, and the
organisation above described. Denck had drunk deeply
at the well of the fourteenth and fifteenth century Mystics,
and his teaching was tinged by many of their ideas. He
- believed that there was a spark of the divine nature in man,
an Inner Word, which urged man to walk in the ways of
God, and that man could always keep true to the inward
monitor, who was none else than Christ. The accounts
(riven of some of his addresses seem to be echoes of Tauler's
famous sermon on the Bridegroom and the Bride, for he
taught that the sufferings of the faithful are to be looked
upon as the love-gifts of the Saviour, and are neither to
be mourned nor resisted. We are told in the quaint
Chronicle of Sebastian Franck, that the Baptist current
swept swiftly through the whole land ; many thousands were
{
VARIETIES OF TEACHING 437
baptized, and many hearts drawn to them. "For they
taught nothing but love, faith, and crucifixion of the flesh,
manifesting patience and humility under many sufferings,
breaking bread with one another in sign of unity and love,
helping one another with true helpfulness, lending, borrow-
ing, giving, learning to have all things in common, calling
each other ' brother.' " ^ He adds that they were accused
of many things of which they were innocent, " and were
treated very tyrannically.
The Anabaptists, like the earlier Mystics, displayed a
strong individuality; and this makes it impossible to
classify tlieir tenets in a body of doctrine which can be
held to express the system of intellectual belief which lay
at the basis of the^ whole movement. We have three
contemporary accounts which show the divergence of
opinion among them — two from hostile and one from a
sympathetic historian. Bullinger^ attempts a classifica-
tion of their different divisions, and mentions thirteen
distinct sects within the Anabaptist circle; but they
manifestly overlap in such a way as to suggest a very
large amount of difference which cannot be distinctly
tabulated. Sebastian Franck^ notes all the varieties of
views which BulHnger mentions, but refrains from any
classification. "There are," he says, "more sects and
opinions, which I do not know and cannot describe, but
it appears to me that there are not two to be found
who agree with each other on all points." 'Kessler,^
who recounts the story of the Anabaptists of St. Gallen,
notes the same great variety of opinions.
It is quite possible to describe the leading ideas taught
by a few noted men and approved of by their immediate
circle of followers, and so to arrive with some accuracy
at the popularity of certain leading principles among
different parties, but it must be remembered that no great
1 Chronica (Augsburg edition," 1565), f. 164.
2 Der Wiedcrtdvfcren Ursprung, Furgang, Seden, etc. (Zurich, 1560).
3 Chronica (3 pts., Strassburg, 1531).
* Sabbaia (.cd. by Egli and Schoch, St. Gall, 1902).
438 ANABAPTISM t
\
leader imposed his opinions on the whole Anabaptist
circle, and that the views held at different times by pro-
minent men were not invariably the sentiments which lay
at the basis of the whole movement.
The doctrine of passive resistance was held by almost
all the earlier Anabaptists, but it was taught and practised
in such a great variety of ways that a merely general state-
ment gives a misleading idea. All the earlier Anabaptists
believed that it w^as unchristian to return evil for evil, and
that they should take the persecutions which came to them
without attempting to retaliate. Some, like the young
Humanist, Hans Denck, pushed the theory so far that they
believed that no real Christian could be either a magistrate
or a soldier. A small band of Anabaptists, to whom one
of the Counts of Lichtenstein had criven shelter at Nikols-
burg, told their protector plainly that they utterly dis-
approved of his threatening the Austrian Commissary
with armed resistance if he entered the Nikolsburg
territory to seize them. In short, what is called " passive
resistance " took any number of forms, from the ordinary
Christian maxim to be patient under tribulation, to that
inculcated and practised by the modern sect of Dunkhers.
The followers of Melcbior Hoffmann, called " Melchior-
ites," held apocalyptic or millenarian views, and expected
in the near future the return of Christ to reign over His
saints ; but there is no reason to suppose that this con-
ception was very widely adopted, still less that it can be
called a tenet of Anabaptism in general. All the Ana-
baptists inculcated the duty of charity and the claims of
the poor on the richer members of the community ; but
that is a common Christian precept, and does not necessarily
imply communistic theories or practices. All that can
be definitely said of the whole Anabaptist circle was that
they did keep very clearly before them the obligations of
Christian love. The so-called Communism in Mlinster
will be described later.
When we examine carefully the incidental records
of contemporary witnesses observing their Anabaptist
ANABAPTIST EVANGELISTS 439
neighbours, we reach the general conclusion that their
main thought was to reproduce in their own lives what
seemed to them to be the beliefs, usages, and social
practices of the primitive Christians. Translations of the
Bible and of parts of it had been common enough in
Germany before Luther's days. The " common man,"
especially the artisan of the towns, knew a great deal
about the Bible. It was the one book he read, re-read, and
pondered over. Fired with the thoughts created in hia
mind by its perusal, simple men felt impelled to become
itinerant preachers. The " call " came to them, and they
responded at once to what they believed to be the divine
voice. Witness Hans Ber of Alten-Erlangen, a poor
peasant. He rose from his bed one night and suddenly
began to put on his clothes. " Whither goest thou ? "
asked his poor wife. " I know not ; God knoweth," he
answered. " What evil have I done thee ? Stay and
help me to bring up my little children." " Dear wife,"
he answered, " trouble me not with the things of time.
I must away, that I may learn the will of the Lord." ^ Such
men wandered about in rude homespun garments; often
barefooted, their heads covered with rough felt hats. They
craved hospitality in houses, and after supper produced
their portions of the Bible, read and expounded, then
vanished in the early morning. We are told how Hans
Hut came to the house of Franz Strigel at Weier in
Franconia, produced his Bible, read and e^xpounded,
explained the necessity of adult baptism, convinced Strigel,
the house father, and eight others, and -baptized them there
and then. He wandered forth the same night. None
of the baptized saw him again ; but the little community
remained — a small band of Anabaptists.^
These wandering preachers, " prophets " they may be
called if we give them the early Christian name, were not
drilled in any common set of- opinions. Each conceived
^ C. A. Cornelius, Geschichte des Miinsterwchen Aufriihrs (Leipzig, 1855),
ii. 49.
2 IMd. ii. 49.
440 ANABAPTISM
the primitive teaching and social life as he seemed to see
it reflected in the New Testament ; and no two conceptions
were exactly the same. The circumstances and surroundings
produced an infinite variety of thought about the doctrines
and usages which ought to be accepted and practised.
Yet they had traditional modes of interpretation handed
down to them from the praying circles of the " Brethren."
Compare what the Austrian Inquisitor says of the
" Brethren " in the thirteenth century, with what Johann
Kessler tells about the Anabaptists of St. Gallen, and
the resemblance is striking so far as external appearance
goes. " Hseretici cognoscuntur per mores et verba," says
the Inquisitor. " Sunt enim in moribus compositi et
modesti ; super biam in vestibus non habent, nee pretiosis,
nee multum abjectis utuntur. . . . Doctores etiam
ipsorum sunt sutores et textores. Divitias non multi-
plicant, sed necessariis sunt contenti. Casti etiam sunt.
. . . Tempera ti etiam in cibo et potu. Ad tabernas
non eunt, nee ad choreas, nee ad alias vanitates. Ab ira
se cohibent ; semper operantur, discunt vel docent, et ideo
parum orant. . . . Cognoscuntur etiam in verbis pnecisis
Ht modestis. Cavent etiam a scurrilitate et detractione,
et verborum levitate, et mendacio, et juramento." ^ Kessler
tells us that the walk and conversation of these Anabaptists
was " throughout pious, holy, and blameless " ; that they
refrained from wearing costly apparel, despised luxurious
eating and drinking, clothed themselves in rough cloth,
wore slouch hats on their heads. Franck relates that
they refused to frequent wine-shops and the " gild " rooms
where dances were held. ^^
As they lived again the life of these mediaeval sectaries,
so they reproduced their opinions in the same sporadic way.
Some of them objected to all war even in self-defence,
as did some of the earlier Lollards. Their Lord had said
to His first disciples : " Go your ways : behold, I send
you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves." They flung
1 Magna B'lhliotheca Veterum Patrum (Coloniae Agrippinae, 1618),
Rainerii Socclioni, Summa, c. vii.
FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE- 441
from them the sword, with which peasant and artisan were
then alike girt, and went about as the apostles were ordered
to do, with staves in their hands — the StdUer or staffmen who
would have nothing to do with the weapons of wolves.
Others, also like some of the Lollards, would not enter the
" huge stone houses with great glass windows which men
called 'churches.'" The early Christians had preached
and "broken bread" in houses; and they would follow
their example ; and in private rooms, in the streets, in the
market-places, they proclaimed their gospel of peace and
contentment. The infinitesimal number who taught some-
thing like " free love," and who were repudiated by the
others, were reproducing the vagaries of the mediaeval
Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, who gave Meister
Eckhart so much trouble centuries before in the Khineland.
All the more extravagant ideas and practices which appear
among small sections of these Anabaptists of the sixteenth
century can be found among the sectaries of the Middle
Ages. For the whole Anabaptist movement was mediaeval
to the core ; and, like most of the mediaeval religious awaken-
iSgsTproduced an infinite variety of opinions and practices.
The one idea common to all was, that the Christians of the
sixteenth century were called to reproduce in thought and
life the intellectual behefs and usages of the primitive
Christians. It is simply impossible to give any account of
opinions and practices which were Universally prevalent
among them. Even the most widely spread usages, adult
baptism and the " breaking of bread," were not adopted in
all the divisions of the Anabaptists.
What is more, they were modern enough, at least in
the earlier stages of the movement, to be conscious of this
(which the Mystics were not), and to give it expression.
All felt and thought as did a " simple man," Hans ^Ililler
of Medikon, when brought before the Zurich magistrates :
" Do not lay a burden on my conscience, for faith is a gift
given freely by God, and is not common property. The
mystery of God lies hidden, like the treasure in the field,
which no. one can find but he to whom the Spirit ebows it.
442 . ANABAPTISM
So I beg you, ye servants of God, let my faith stand free." ^
And the Anabaptists, alone of all the religious parties in
those strenuous times, seem to have recognised that what
they claimed for themselves they were bound to grant to
others. Great differences in opinion did not prevent the
strictest brotherly fellowship. Hans Denck held a doctrine
of non-resistance as thoroughgoing as that of Count Tolstoy,
and fully recognised the practical consequences to which it
led. But this did not prevent the ardent and gifted young
Humanist working loyally with Hlibmaier, who did not share
his extreme opinions. The divergences among the leaders
appeared in their followers without destroying the sense of
brotherhood. Franck tells us in his Chronicle ^ that some,
but very few, held that no Christian could enter the
magistracy, for Christians had nothing to do with the sword,
but only with spiritual excommunication, and that no
Christian should fight and slay. The others, he says, in-
cluding the very great majority, believed that Christians
might become magistrates, and that in case of dire necessity
and when they clearly saw the leading of God, might take
their share in fighting as soldiers.
Melchior Hoffmann, while he believed in the incarna-
tion, held that Jesus received His flesh directly from God,
and did not owe His body to the Virgin Mother, through
whom He passed " as light through a pane of glass."
He also held that the whole history of the world, down
to the last days, was revealed in Scripture, and could be
discovered through prayer and meditation. He was an
eloquent and persuasive preacher, and his views were
accepted by many ; but it would be a great mistake to
assume that they were shared in by the Anabaptists as a
community. Yet even contemporaries, who were opponents,
usually attribute the extreme opinions of a few to the entire
body.
It ought to be observed that this tolerance of different
opinions within the one society did not extend to those
^ Egli, Die Zilricher Wiedertdufer (Zurich, 1878), p. 96.
.? Folio \b^^ of the Augsburg edition of 1565.
NO STATE CHURCH 443
who remained true to the State Churches, whether Romanist
or Reformed. The Anabaptists would have nothing to do
with a State Church ; and this was the main point in their
separation from the Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists.
It was perhaps the one conception on which all parties
among them were in absolute accord. The real Church,
which might be small or great, was for them an association
of believing people ; and the great ecclesiastical institutions
into which unconscious infants were admitted by a ceremony
called baptism long before they could have or exercise faith,
represented to them an idea subversive of true Christianity.
They had no wish to persecute men who differed widely
from them, but they would not associate with them. This
enforced " separation," like everything else connected with
Anabaptism, differed considerably in the way in which it
was carried into practice. In some of the smaller sections it
appeared in very extravagant forms. Wives and husbands.
Anabaptists whose partners belonged to the State Churches,
were in some small sections advised to refuse cohabita-
tion. It is more than probable that some recorded sayings
on which opponents have founded charges of encouraging
sexual irregularities, — that it was better for women to have
connection irregularly with members of the brotherhood
than to cohabit with unbelieving husbands, — were simply
extravagant ways of expressing this duty of separation.
It is also true that as time went on and sects of ex-
treme opinions multiplied, the excommunication df members
for their views came to be a common practice. It was as
frequent among some of the smaller divisions as it is among
modern Plymouth Brethren ; but the occasion was, as a rule,
difference of opinion about the way to express and exercise
the duty of not returning evil for evil — was it permitted
to pay taxes or not ? was it lawful to see without protest
their protectors using force to prevent their enemies from
attacking them, etc. ?
The earlier ideas of non-resistance, whatever practical
shape they might take, gave way before the continuous and
terrible persecution which the' Auabaptists had to CDduve.
444 ANABAPTISM
They were first definitely condemned by Melchior Hoffmann
and his followers. They believed in the speedy establish-
ment on earth of the millennial kingdom of Christ, and
they declared that they were ready to fight for it when it
appeared. With them the conception was simply a pious
opinion, and they had no occasion to reduce it to action.
The Anabaptists, however, who followed the teaching of
Jan Matthys and of his disciple Jan Bockelson, repudiated
passive resistance both in theory and in practice.
Of course, there are many things about some, perhaps
all, great religious awakenings which critics can lay hold of
to their disparagement ; and it was so with the Anabaptist
movement. Everything, from the scientific frame of mind
to the religious sensibility, has the defects of its qualities.
When a man is seized and possessed by a new spiritual
emotion which seems to lift him above all previous ex-
perience of life or of thought, all things are new to him,
and all things seem possible. His old life with its limita-
tions has departed. He is embarked on a sea which has
no imprisoning shores. He is carried along on a great
current of emotion, and others are borne with him. Human
deep calleth unto deep when they exchange confidences.
He and his fellows have become new creatures ; and that
is almost all that they know about themselves. Such
experiences are quite consistent with soundness of mind
and clearness of vision of God and Divine things — that
is usual ; but sometimes they are too powerful for the
'imperfect mind which holds them. The converts are
" puffed up," as St. Paul said. Then arise morbid
! states, distorted vision, sometimes actual shipwreck of
mental faculties, not seldom acute religious mania.
Leaders in a great religious awakening have always to
reckon with such developments — St. Paul, Francis of
Assisi, Eckhart, Tauler, to say nothing of modern instances.
The Apostle addressed morbid souls with severe sarcasm.
Did any man really think, he asked, that to commit
incest, to take to wiie his father's widow, was an example
of the freedom with which Christ had made them free ?
ANABAPTISTS IN SWITZERLAND • 445
The Anabaptist movement had its share of such cases,
like other religious movements ; they grew more frequent
as the unfortunate people were maddened by persecution ;
and these exceptional incidents are invariably retailed at
length by historians hostile to the movement.
The Anabaptists, as a whole, were subjected to persecu-
tions, especially from the Romanists and the Lutherans,
much more harsh than befell any of the religious parties
jof the sixteenth century. Their treatment in Zurich
may be taken as an example of how they came in contact
with the civil authorities, and how their treatment grew in
severity.^
The Swiss Anabaptists were in no sense disciples of
Zwingli. They had held their distinctive principles and
were a recognised community long before Zwingli came
from Einsiedeln, and were the lineal descendants of the
mediaeval Waldenses. They welcomed the Reformer ; some
of them were in the company who challenged the authorities
by eating meat during Lent in 1522 ; but a fundamental
difference soon emerged. After the Public Disputation of
1523, when it became clear that Zurich meant to accept
the Reformation, a deputation of the Brethren appeared
before the Council to urge their idea of w^hat a Reformed
Church should be. Their statement of principles is an
exposition of the fundamental conceptions which lay at the
basis of the whole Anabaptist movement, and explains why
they could not join either the Lutheran or the 'Reformed
branch of the Reformation Church. They insisted that
an Evangelical Church must differ from the Roman Church
in this among other things, that it should consist of
members who had made a personal profession of faith in
their Saviour, and who had vowed to live in obedience to
^The Swiss Anabaptists have been selected becaus? we have yery full
contemporary documentary evidence in their case. Cf. Egli, Actensamm-
lung zur Geschichte der Ziiricher Rcfortnation (Zurich, 1879) ; Die Zuricher
Wiedertaufer (Zurich, 1878) ; Die St, Galler IVicdcrtdv.fer (Zurich).
The documentary evidence given in Egli's wotks has been condensed and
snmmarise<l by H. S. Burrage, A Ilisto'i'y of the Anabojiti^fs in SwUzc rhmd
(Philadclpliia, 1881).
446 • ANABAPTISM
Jesus Christ their Haupt^nann. It could not be like a
State Church, whether Eomanist or other, to which people
belonged without any individual profession of faith. They
insisted that the Church, thus formed, should be free from
all civil control, to decide for itself what doctrines and cere-
monies of worship were founded on the Word of God, and
agreeable thereto, and should make this decision according
to the opinions of a majority of the members. They further
asked that the Church should be free to exercise, by
brotherly admonition and, as a last resort, by excommunica-
tion, discipline on such of its members as offended against
the moral law. They also declared that the Church which
thus rejected State control ought to refuse State support,
and proposed that the tithes should be secularised. The
New Testament, they said, knew nothing about interest and
usury, tithes, livings, and prebends.
These views were quite opposed to the ideas of the
Zurich Council, who contemplated a State Church reformed
from Eomanist abuses, but strictly under the control of the
State, and supported by the tithes, as the mediaeval Church
liad been. They refused to adopt the ideas of the Anabap-
tists ; and this was the beginning of the antagonism.
The Council found that the great majority of the petitioners
had doubts about infant baptism, and were inclined to what
are now called Baptist views ; and they brought matters to
a crisis by ordering a Public Disputation on Baptism (Jan.
17th, 1525). Among the Anabaptists who appeared to
defend their principles, were young Conrad Grebel the
Humanist, Felix Manz, and Brother Jorg from Jacob's
House, a conventual establishment near Chur, who is
always called " Blaurock " (Blue-coat). They were op-
posed by Zwingli, who insisted that infant baptism must be
maintained, because it took the place of circumcision. The
Council decided that Zwingli's contention was right, and
they made it a laio that all childixn must he baptized, and
added that all persons who refused to have their children
baptized after Feb. 1st, 1525, were to be arrested. The
Anabaptists were not slow to answer the challenge thus
PERSECUTIONS 447
given. They met, and after deliberation and prayer Blau-
rock asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him in a truly Chris-
tian fashion, " there being no ordained person present," and
Grebel did so. " When this had been done the others
entreated Blaiirock to baptize them, which he did ; and in
deep fear of the Lord they gave themselves to God." They
resolved to preach and baptize, because in this they ought
to obey God rather than men.^
When the Council heard that adult baptism had
begun, they enacted that all who had been rebaptized
after Feb. 8th (1525) were to be fined a silver mark, and
that whoever was baptized after the issue of their decree
should be banished. They also imprisoned the leaders.
When they found that neither fines, nor threats, nor
imprisonment, nor banishment had any effect on the
Anabaptists, the Town Council thought to terrify them by
a death sentence. Two were selected, Manz and Blaurock.
The latter was not a citizen, and the sentence of death was
commuted to one of public scourging and being thrust out
of the town ; but Felix Manz, a townsman, was put to
death by drowning (1527). Zwingli insisted that this
judicial murder was not done because of baptism, but
because of rt»-bellion !
What was done in Reformed Switzerland was seen all
over Eoman Catholic and Lutheran Germany. It is only
fair to say that the persecution was more murderous within
the Eomanist districts ; but the only Lutheran Prince who
refused to permit a death penalty on Anabaptism was
Philip of Hesse He was afterwards joined by the Elector
of Saxony.
In 1527 (Aug. 26th), the Archduke Ferdinand of
Austria published an imperial mandate threatening all
Aiiabaptists with the punishment of death. Two months
later, two thousand copies of this proclamation were sent
to the provinces of the German Empire, calling on the
authorities to extirpate these unfortunate people. The
* The scene is described in Beck, Die Gcschichts- Biichcr der Wiedcrtdufcr
ill Ostreich-Uvg'rn von 15-^6 bis 1785 (Vienna, 1883),
448 ANABAPTISM
rulers in Salzburg and in the Tyrol obeyed the order
at once, and a fierce persecution soon raged. The minds
of the population were inflamed by infamous calumnies.
It was said in Salzburg that the Anabaptists had planned
to massacre all the priests and monks within the princi-
pality. The well-known dislike of the brethren to war
was tortured into the accusation that on a Turkish
invasion they would side with the enemy against all loyal
Germans. A certain Leopold Dickius, who wrote an
atrocious book against the Anabaptists, demanded that all
the men should be slain and the women and children
suffered to perish from starvation ; in this way only, he
said, could their errors be stamped out.
The Salzburg chronicler, Kilian Leib, a Eomanist, gives
details of the persecution. He tells us that men, women,
and young maidens suffered death by fire, beheading,
and drowning, not only uncomplainingly, but with solemn
joy. He dwells on the case of " a beautiful young girl "
of sixteen, whose gentle innocence excited universal
compassion, and who utterly refused to recant. The
executioner pinned her hands to her sides, plunged her
head downwards into a horse trough, held her there till
she was suffocated, and then took her body away to burn
it. The official lists show that the victims came from all
classes in society. Noblemen, girdle-makers, wallet-makers,
shoemakers, a town clerk, and ex-priests.
The persecution in the Tyrol was severe and thorough.
A large number of the miners of the district were Ana-
baptists, and it was resolved to root out the so-called
heresy. Descriptions were published of prominent
Anabaptists, who wandered from place to place en-
couraging their brethren to steadfastness. " One named
Mayerhofer has a long brown beard and wears a grey
soldier's coat ; a companion, tall and pale, wears a long
black coat with trimming ; a third is shorter ; a fourth,
thin and of a ruddy complexion, is known as a cutler."
Conrad Braun, an assessor to the imperial Chamber and
an eye-witness to the persecutions, wrote, — " I have seen
V
PERSECUTIONS 449
with my own eyes that nothing has been able to bring
back the Anabaptists from their errors or to make them
recant. The hardest imprisonment, hunger, fire, water, the
sword, all sorts of frightful executions, have not been able
to shake them. I have seen young people, men, women, go
to the stake singing, filled with joy ; and I can say that in
the course of my whole life nothing has moved me more." ^
In the Tyrol and Gorz the number of executions by the
year 1531 amounted to a thousand, according to the
chronicler Kirchmayr. Sebastian Franck reckons the
number in Enisheim, within the government of Upper
Austria, at six hundred. Seventy-three martyrs suffered
in Linz within six weeks. The persecution in Bavaria was
particularly severe ; Duke William ordered that those who
recanted were to be beheaded, and those who refused were
to be burned. The general practice, made a law by
Ferdinand of Austria in 1529 (April 23rd), was that only
preachers, baptizers. Baptists who refused to recant, and
those who had relapsed after recantation, were to be
punished with death.^
In these bloody persecutions, which raged over almost
all Europe, most of the earlier leaders of the Anabaptists
perished ; but the great body of their followers were neither
intimidated nor disposed to abjure their teaching. Per-
secution did not come unexpectedly. No one was admitted
into an Anabaptist community without being warned of tho
pLOoable fate which lay before him. Baptism was a vow
that he would be constant unto death ; the " breaking of
bread " strengthened his faith ; the sermon was full of
exhortations to endurance unto the end. Their whole
service of worship was a preparation for and an expectation
of martyrdom.
The strain of Christian song seemed to rise higher
with the fires of persecution. Most of the Anabaptist
^ The history of the persecution in the Tyrol is to be found in J. Loserth,
Anabaptismus in Tirol; and in Kirchmayr, Den]ciourdigkcilen seiiier Zeit,
1519-53, pt. i. in Ftmfes Rerum Ausfriacarum, i. 417-534.
2 Cornelius, Gcschichte dcs Milnstcrischen Aufruhrs (Leipzig, 1855), ii. 58.
29**
450 ANABAPTISM V'
hymns belong to the time when their sufferings were
greatest. Some are simply histories of a martyrdom, as
of Jorg Wagner at Munich, or of the " Seven Brethren at
Gemiind." They are all echoes of endurance where the
notes of the sob, the trust, the warning, the hosanna of a
time of martyrdom, blend in rough heroic strains. They
sing of Christ, who in these last days has manifested
Himself that the pure word of His Gospel may again
run through the earth as it did in the days of the early
Church. They tell how the arch-enemy of souls seeks to
protect himself against the advancing host of Jesus by
exciting bloody persecutions. They utter warnings against
false prophets, ravening wolves in sheep's clothing, who
beset all the paths of life leading towards the true fold,
who pour forth threats and curses against the people of
God, and urge on the rulers of this world to torture and
to slay. They depict how the evil world storms against
the true Church, shrieks out lies against the true followers
of Jesus, and threatens them with burnings and all
manner of cruel deaths. They mourn that the disciples
of Jesus are slaughtered like sheep who have lost their
shepherd ; that they wander in wildernesses full of thorns
that tear ; that they have their homes like the night-birds
among the cliffs or in the clefts of the rocks ; that they
are snared in the nets of the fowler ; that they are
hunted with hounds like the hares. Others, inspired
by the internal hope which lives undying in every
Christian heart, tell how Christ the Bridegroom seeks the
love of the soul His bride, and how He wins her to
Himself by His love-gifts of trial and of suffering, till at
last the marriage feast is held, and the soul becomes
wholly united to her Lord. The thoughts and phrases
of the old Hebrew prophets, of the Psalmist, of the
hymns of the Apocalypse, which have fed the fears
and the hopes of longing, suffering, trusting generations
of Christian people, reappear in those Anabaptist hynms.
Life is for them a continuous Holy War, a Pilgrim's
Progress through an evil world full of snares, of dangers,
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN MUNSTER 451
of temptations, until at last the weary feet tread the
Delectable Mountains, the River of Death is passed, and
the open gates of the heavenly Jerusalem receive the
wayfarer who has persevered to the end.
These poor persecuted people naturally sought for
some city of refuge, i.e. a municipality or district where
baptism of children was not enforced under penalties, and
where the re-baptism of adults was not punished by
imprisonment, torture, and death. For a time they found
many such asylums. The Anabaptists were for the most
part good workmen, and patient and provident cultivators
of the soil, ready to pay all dues but the unscriptural
war-tax. They were a source of wealth to many a great
landed proprietor who was. willing to allow them to live
their lives in peace. Moravia, East Friesland, and,
among the municipaUties, Augsburg, Worms, and Strass-
burg gave shelter until the slow determined pressure of the
higher authorities of the Empire compelled them to act
otherwise. All that the Anabaptists desired was to be
allowed to live in peace, and we hear of no great disturb-
ances caused by their presence in any of these " cities of
refuge."
This brings us to what has been called " The Kingdom
of ^God in Milnsfcer," and to the behaviour of the Ana-
baptists there — the communism, polygamy, and so forth,
which are described in all histories of the times.
Miinster was the capital of the large and .important
ecclesiastical principality which . bears the same name.
The bishop was a Prince of the German Empire, and
ruleil his principality with all the rights of a secular prince.
Clergy filled almost all the important posts of govern-
uiont ; they levied taxes on imports and exports ; the rich
canonrics of the cathedral were reserved for the sons of
the landed gentry ; the townspeople had no share in the
richer benefices, and chafed under their clerical rulers.
The citizens lived in a state of almost permanent dis-
affection, and their discontent had 'frequently taken the
form of civic insurrections. They rose in 1525, in 1527
452 ANABAPTISM
(in which year the name of a wealthy burgher, Bernard
KnipperdoUing, first appears as a leader of his fellow-
citizens), and in 1529, the dreadful year of famine and
plague.^ Many have been disposed to see in these
emeutes, anticipations of the struggle which followed ; but
nothing in the sources warrants the conclusion. They
were simply examples of the discontent of the unprivileged
classes which had been common enough in Germany for
at least a century.
The city of Mlinster had been slow to receive the
religious Eeformation, but in 1529 the people began to
listen to the preaching of an obscure young chaplain
attached to the Church of St. Maurice, built outside the
walls of the town.^ Bernhard Rothmann was a scholar,
imbued with Humanist culture, gifted with the power of
clear reasoning, and with natural eloquence. It is probable
that he had early been attracted by the teaching of
Luther ; ^ but while he dwelt upon justification by faith,
his sermons were full of that sympatliy for the down-
trodden toiling masses of the community which was a
permanent note in all Anabaptist teaching. His sermons
were greatly appreciated by the townsfolk, especially by
the artisans, who streamed out of the gate to hear the
^ The disease was known as the English plague or the sweating sickness.
It is thus described by Hecker {E/ridemics of the Middle Ages, p. 181) :
*' It was violent inflammatory fever, which, after a short rigour, prostrated
the powers as with a blow ; and amidst painful oppression at the stomach,
headache, and lethargic stupor, sutiused the whole body with foetid
perspiration. All this took place within the course of a few hours, and the
crisis was always over within the space of a day and a night. The internal
heat that the patient Buttvred was intolerable, yet every refrigerant was
death."
" Rothmann was born at Stadtlohn, and received the rudiments of
education in the village school there ; a relation sent him to the Gymnasium
at MUuster ; he studied atterwards at Mainz, where he received the degree of
M.A. ; he was made chaplain in the St. Maurice church at Mlinster
about 1525.
^ His confession of faith, published in Latin and German in 1532, shows
this. I know it only by the summary in Detmer {Bernhard Rothmann,
Mlinster, 1904, pp. 41/.). Detmer says that he knows of only one printed
co[t3', which is in the University Library at Mlinster.
BERNHARD ROTHMANN 453
young chaplain of St. Maurice. Was he not one of
themselves, the son of a poor smith! The cathedral
Canons, who, in the absence of the Bishop, had the
oversight of all ecclesiastical affairs, grew alarmed at his
popularity. Their opportunity for interference came when
the mob, excited, they said, by Kothmann's denunciations
of relic and image worship, profaned the altars, tore the
pictures, and destroyed the decorations in St. Maurice on
the eve of Good Friday, 1531. Kothmann's influence
with the townsmen might have enabled him to defy the
Canons, especially as the Prince Bishop, Friedrich von
Wied, showed no inclination to molest the chaplain, and
was himself suspected of Evangelical sympathies. But
he quietly left the town and spent a year in travelling.
He visited Wittenberg, where he made the acquaintance
of Luther, Melanchthon, and Bugenhagen ; went to Marburg,
Speyer, and Strassburg. At Strassburg he had long
intercourse with Capito and with Schwenkfeld the Mystic,
who is frequently classed with tbe Anabaptists. An
irresistible impulse seems to have drawn him back to
Miinster, where he was welcomed by the people, and the
church of St. Maurice became henceforth the centre of a
movement for religious Eeformation ; the preacher was
supported by the "gilds" of artisans and by most of the
citizens, among whom the most noted was Bernhard
Knipperdolling. . -, -, ^v.
An energetic protest by the Canons induced the
Bishop to inhibit Kothmann from preaching in St. Maurice.
He continued his addresses in the- churchyard of St.
Lambert (Feb. 18th, 1532), and a few days later he was
placed in possession of the church itself. St. Lambert's
had been built by the municipality, and was the property
of the town. Kothmann was appointed by the Town
Council Evangelical preacher to the town, and was given
one of the town's " gild " houses for a parsonage.
Two months later the Bishop resigned, and was
succeeded by Duke Erich of Briinswick-Grubenhagen,
already Bishop of Osnabrtick and Paderborn. The new
454 ANABAPTISM
Bishop determined to get rid of Eothmann. He made
representations to Hesse and Electoral Saxony and other
Evangelical Powers, and persuaded them to induce the
more moderate of the reforming party in Mtinster to
abandon Eothmann ; and, this done, the preacher was
ordered to leave the city. The " gilds " of artisans
refused to let their preacher depart, and, under the
leadership of Knipperdolling,^ drafted a letter to the
authorities declaring their determination to retain him at
all hazards. The democracy of Miinster and the religious
movement for the first time openly combined against the
authorities of the city.
While things were at this pass, the Bishop died (May
13th, 1532). The Chapter elected (June 1st) Count Franz
von Waldeck, already in possession of Minden, and made
Bishop of Osnabruck a few days later (June 11th) — a
pluralist of the first rank. The reforming party in
Miinster expected the worst from their new ruler. A
full assembly of the " gilds " of the town was held, and
by an overwhelming majority the members pledged them-
selves to defend their pastor and his Gospel with body
and goods while life lasted: A committee of thirty-six
burghers was elected to watch the course of events and
to take counsel with the civic rulers and the presidents of
the " gilds." Eothmann published theses explaining his
teaching, and challenging objectors to a public disputa-
tion. Public meetings were held ; the Town Council
was formally requested to hand over all the parochial
churches to Evangelical preachers ; which w^as done —
the Cathedral alone remaining for Eoman Catholic
worship.
These proceedings produced unavailing remonstrances
from the Bishop. The nobles in the neighbourhood tried
to interfere, but to no purpose. In October (1532) the
^ Bernard Knipperdolling or Knipperdollinck (both forms are found)
was a wealthy cloth merchant, an able and fervent speaker, a man of
strong convictions, who had early espoused the people's cause, and had
become the trusted leader of the democracy of Miinster.
BKRNHARD ROTHMANN 455
Bishop's party within the town began to take action.
They attempted to sequester the goods of the more
prominent disaffected citizens ; chains were placed across
the principal streets to prevent communication between
the different quarters ; an attempt was made to isolate
the town itself. These things meant war. The
" gilds," always a military organisation in mediaeval
cities, armed. A party of knights sent to invade the
town retired before the armed citizens. While the
Bishop sought to strengthen himself by aUiances and to
beguile the townsmen by negotiation, a thousand armed
burghers marched by night to the little townshi]^ of
Telgte, where a large number of the ecclesiastical and
secular nobles were encamped, surrounded it, captured
the Bishop's partisans, and returned to hold them as
hostages. This act afforded the occasion for the inter-
vention of Philip of Hesse. An arrangement w^as come
to by which Miinster was declared to be an Evangelical
city and enrolled within the Schmalkald League. The
history of Miinster up to this time (Feb. 14th, 1533)
did not differ from that of many towns which had
adopted the Eeformation. Rothmann had been the
leader in Miinster, like Brenz in Hall, Alber in Eeutlingen,
or Lachmann at Heilbron.
It is usually assumed that up to this time Eothmann
was a Lutheran in his teaching, that he had won Miinster
for the great Lutheran party, and that his future aberra-
tions from the Evangelical theology were due to his weakness
before the Anabaptist mob who later- invaded the city.
This seems to be a mere assumption. He had certainly
taught justification by faith ; but that did not make him
a Lutheran. The dividing line between the various
classes of objectors to the Eoman Catholic theology in
the sixteenth century was drawn at the meaning of the
Sacraments, and especially of the Lord's Supper. There
is absolutely no evidence to show that Eothmann was
ever a follower of Luther in his theory 'of the Holy Supper.
He had visited Luther and Melanchthon during his year
456 ANABAPTISM
of absence from Miinster, but they had never been quite
sure of him. He has confessed that it was at Strassburg
and not at Wittenberg that he got most help for his
future work and received it from Capito, who was no
Lutheran, and from Schwenkfeld, who was an Anabaptist
Mystic. It was Strassburg and not Wittenberg that he
called " the crown of all Christian cities and Churches ! "
In his confession of faith he says that the Mass is no
sacrifice, but only a sign of the true Sacrifice ; and that
the Mass and the Lord's Supper have no other meaning
than to remind us of the death of Christ, and to awaken
in our hearts a certainty of the freely given grace of
God. That is not Lutheran doctrine, it is not even
Zwinglian ; it is much nearer the Anabaptist. It is also
pretty clear that he held the doctrine of the " inner light "
in the sense of many Anabaptists. It may be safely
said that if Eothmann was not an Anabaptist from tbe
beginning, his was a mind prepared to accept their doctrines
almost as soon as they were clearly presented to him.
\ Heinrich Eoll, a fugitive from Jiilich who sought refuge
jin Munster, convinced Eothmann of the unlawfulness of
infant baptism. No sooner had this conviction laid hold
on him than he refused to baptize infants — for Eothmann
was always straightforward. His views annoyed a large
number of the leading citizens, prominent among whom
was Van der Wieck, the syndic of the town. These men,
all Lutherans, besieged their pastor with remonstrances,
and finally brought him before the Town Council. The
matter came to a head on Sept. 7th (1533), when
Staprade, the assistant preacher at St. Lambert's, refused
to baptize the children of two Lutheran members of the
Town Council who had been brought to the church for
the purpose. When the preachers were brought before
the Council, they were informed that such things would
not be allowed. Staprade, the chief offender and a
non-burgher, was banished, and Eothmann with the other
clergy who agreed with him were threatened with the
same fate if they persisted in declining to baptize infants.
' PUBLIC DISPUTATION ON BAPTISM 457
They refused to obey the Council; they were promptly
deposed, and their churches were closed against them.
But the mass of the citizens were attached to Eothmann,
and their attitude became too threatening for the
Magistrates to maintain their uncompromising position,
llothmann was permitted to remain, and was allowed to
preach in the Church of St. Servetius. The Lutheran
Magistrates brought preachers into the town "to occupy
the other places of w^orship.
The Magistrates, Van der Wieck being the leading spirit
among them, resolved to hold a public disputation on the
subject of Baptism. They had brought to Mlinster the
famous Humanist, Hermann von deui Busche, now a pro-
fessor in Marburg and a distinguished defender of the
Lutheran Eeformation, and they counted on his known
learning and eloquence to convince their fellow-citizens that
the views of Eothmann were unscriptural. The conference
was to be perfectly free. Eoman Catholic theologians were
invited, and took part. Eothmann appeared to defend his
position. The invitations had been signed not only by the
Magistrates, but by the heads of the " gilds " of the town.^
Van der Wieck confessed that the result of the disputa-
tion was not what he expected. So far as the great mass
of the people were concerned, Eothmann appeared to have
the best of the argument, and he stood higher than ever in
the estimation of the citizens. Eothmann, whose whole
career shows that opposition made him more and more
advanced, now began to dwell upon the wrongs of the
commonalty and the duty of the rich' to do much more
for their poorer brethren than they did. He taught by
precept as well as example. He lived an openly ascetic
life, that he might abound in charity. His sermons and
his life had an extraordinary effect on the rich as well as on
the poor. Creditors forgave debtors, men placed sums of
money in the hands of Eothmann for distribution. There
was no enforced communism, but the example of the
^ The details of this Disputation have been published by Detmer in the
Monatshefte der Cammenius-Gesellschaft (Berlin, |1 900), ix. 21Zff.
458 ANABAPTISM
primitive Church in Jerusalem was followed as far as
possible. Among these thoroughgoing followers of
Eothmann, a wealthy lady, the mother-in-law of Bernard
Knipperdolling, was conspicuous.
The Magistrates became seriously alarmed at the con-
dition of things. They knew that so long as they remained
a Lutheran municipality, even nominally, the great Lutheran
Princes, like Philip of Hesse and the Elector of Saxony,
would protect them against their Komanist Bishop ; but
Lutherans and Piomanists alike disliked and distrusted
Anabaptists, and the imperial edict would surely be enforced
against them sooner or later. Eothmann's preaching,
which they could not control, and the power he exercised
through the " gilds," made it impossible for them to main-
tain that Miinster was a member of the confederacy of
Lutheran cities. On the other hand, the news that Miinster
had practically become Anabaptist, spread far and wide
among these persecuted people, who began to think that it
was destined to be a conspicuous city of refuge, perhaps the
Zion or New Jerusalem whose establishment Melchior
Hoffmann had predicted. They gathered from all parts
to place themselves under the protection of its walls. The
great majority naturally, came from the Netherlands,
where the persecution was hottest. The refugees were
almost all Melchiorites — men who looked for a speedy
termination of their sufferings in the establishment of the
kingdom of God upon the earth ; and the majority of them
were Dutch Melchiorites, men to whom freedom was a tradi-
tion, ready to fight for it, disciples of Jan Matthys, who had
taught them to abandon the doctrine of passive resistance
so universally held by all sections of the earlier Ana-
baptists.^ Eothmann had long been acquainted with the
books and tracts of Hoffmann, and had great sympathy
with them. He as well as the Magistrates foresaw trouble
for himself and for the city. He went the length of
advising friends who did not share his opinions to leave
the town ; for himself, his manifest duty appeared to be
1 Cf., above, ii. 235/.
\
DUTCH ANABAPTISTS IN MUNSTER 459
to risk all on behalf of the poor people whom God had
given into his hand.
The last months of 1532 saw Eothmann and the
Lutheran Town Council facing each other with growing
mutual suspicion. On Dec. 8th, a journeyman smith,
Johann Schroder, began preaching Anabaptist doctrines
in the churchyard of St. Lambert's, and challenged the
Lutheran pastor, Fabricius, to a disputation. This was
more than the Town Council could endure. They pro-
hibited Eothmann preaching, and declared that they
withdrew their protection — a sentence of virtual outlawry
(Dec. 11th). He calmly told the messenger of the Council
that he depended on the help of higher powers than his
masters, and preached publicly in the Church of -St.
Servatius. Schroder had begun to preach again, and was
apprehended. The " gild " of the smiths rose, and, headed
by their officials, forced the . Council to release their
comrade. The Anabaptists and Eothmann had won a
notable triumph, which was soon widely known. Banished
Anabaptist pastors returned to the town.
Events marched quickly thereafter. Bartholomaeus
Boekbinder and Willem de Kuiper, sent by Jan Matthys,
appeared in Miinster (Jan. 5th, 1533). We can infer
what their message was from what followed. Eothmann
denounced the Council and its Lutheran preachers. Eiots
were the consequence, many of the rioters being women,
among whom the nuns of the Uberwasser convent were
conspicuous. It was declared that all believers ought to
be rebaptized, and that a hst of the faithful ought to
be made. The document contained fourteen hundred
names within eight days. The mass of the people
enthusiastically believed in the near approach of the Day
of the Lord.
Soon afterwards (Jan. 13th, 1533), Jan Bockelson
(John of Leyden) entered the town. He was the favourite
disciple and alter ego of Jan Matthys.; He brought with
him the famous Twenty-one Articles, and called upon the
faithful to .unite themselves into a compact organisation
460 ANABAPTISM
pledged to carry them out. He was received with
enthusiasm.
The Council, feeling their helplessness, appealed to
the Bishop, who contented himself with ordering them
to execute the imperial mandate against Anabaptists.
He was as much incensed against the Lutherans as
against the Anabaptists, and hoped that the two parties
would destroy themselves. Within the town, Anabaptists
fought with the combined Evangelicals and Eomanists,
and on two occasions the tumults were succeeded by
truces which guaranteed full liberty of worship to all
persons (Jan. 28th and Feb. 9th). Then the Council
abandoned the struggle. The principal Burgomaster,
Tylbeck, was baptized, and Van der Wieck, with many of
the principal citizens, left the town. Van der Wieck
fell into the hands of the Bishop, who slaughtered him
barbarously.
A new Council, entirely Anabaptist, was elected, with
Bernard KnipperdoUing and Gerhard Kibbenbroick, a
leading merchant, as Burgomasters (Feb. 28th). The
complete rule of the Anabaptists had begun. This date
also marks the beginning of the investment of the city by
the Bishop's troops. It should never be forgotten, as it
frequently is, that during the whole period of Anabaptist
domination in Mlinster the town was undergoing the
perils of a siege, and that military considerations had to
be largely kept in mind. Nor should it be forgotten that
during its existence the Bishop's troops were murdering
in cold blood every Anabaptist they could lay their
hands on.
Jan Matthys himself had come to Miinster some time
in February, urged thereto by a letter from Bockelson,
and the citizens had become accustomed to see the long
lean figure of the prophet, with his piercing eyes and
flowing black beard, pass to and fro in their streets. They
had learned to hang breathless on his words as his sonorous
voice repeated the message which the Lord had given
him to utter, or described the visions which had been
JAN MATTHYS 461
vouchsafed to him. When an Anabaptist Council ruled
the city they were but the mouthpiece of the prophet.
His reign was brief, but while it lasted he issued command
after command.
Separation from the world was one of the ideas lie
dwelt upon in his addresses ; and to him this meant that
no unbelievers, no unbaptized, could remain within the
walls of an Anabaptist city. The command went forth
that all adults must be baptized or leave the town. It is
scarcely to be wondered that, with the great likelihood of
falling into the hands of the Bishop's soldiers as soon as
they got beyond the walls, the great majority of those
who had not yet received the seal of the new communion
submitted to the ceremony. They were marched to the
market-place, where they found "three or more" Ana-
baptist preachers, each with a great vessel full of water
before them. The neophytes knelt down, received the usual
admonition, and a dish of water was thrice emptied on
their heads in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost. This done, they went to the Burgomaster's
house and had their names entered on the roll.^
It was also by Matthys' orders that what is called
the communism of Munster was begun. The duty of
systematic and brotherly charity had from the first been
an outstanding one among the Anabaptists. Like all
other principles which find immediate outcome in action,
this one of brotherly love had found many ways of taking
actual shape. In a few of the smaller sections of the
brethren it had appeared in the form- of communism so
far as food and raiment went. In some of the communities
in Moravia the Brethren subscribed to a common fund out
of which common meals were provided; and these pay-
ments were compulsory. We have seen how Eothmann's
sermons had produced an extraordinary outburst of bene-
volence in Munster before the coming of the prophets.
1
Meister Heinrich GresbccJc's Bericht vo7i der ^ Wiedertaufe in Minister,
p. 20 (edited by Ck)rnelius for Die Gcschichtsqucllcn des Bisthums Miinstcr,
vol. ii., Munster, 1853).
462 ANABAPTISM
X
It does not appear that Matthys' commands went further
than the exhortations of Eothmann. Miinster was a
beleaguered city. When the siege began it contained
about seventeen hundred men, between five and six
thousand women, besides thousands of children. The
largest proportion of these were refugees. It is evident
that numbers could not support themselves, but were
absolutely dependent upon the charity of their neighbours.
The preachers invited the faithful to give up their money,
and what provisions they could spare to feed the poverty
striken. Large numbers thus appealed to brought all
their portable property ; others gave part ; some refused,
and were denounced publicly. The provisions stored in
the monasteries or in private houses abandoned by their
proprietors — were taken for the common good. When the
siege had lasted long, and the enemy were deliberately
starving the inhabitants into surrender, the communism
in food became stricter, as is the case in any beleaguered
fortress. No attempt was ever made to institute a
thoroughgoing communism. What existed at first was
simply an abundant Christian charity enforced by public
opinion,^ and latterly a requisitioning of everything that
could be used to support the whole population of a
besieged city.
Jan Matthys did not long survive his coming to
Miinster. On the evening of the 4th of April, as he sat
at supper in a friend's house, he was observed to spend
long minutes in brooding. At last, sighing heavily, he
was heard to ejaculate, " Loved Father, not my will but
Thine be done." He rose quietly from his seat, shook
hands with all his companions, solemnly kissed each one ;
then left the house in silence, accompanied by his wife.
Next day with about twenty companions he went out by
one of the gates of the city, fell fiercely on the enemy,
was overpowered by numbers, and received his death-stroke.
^ Cf. Die Milnsterische Ajjologie, printed by Cornelius in his Berichte clef
Augenzeugen ilher das milnst.erische JV kdertduferreich, p. 457 {Geschcchts-
quellen des Bisthums Munstcr, vol. ii.).
POLYGAMY 463
A religious enthusiast and a singularly straightforward
and courageous man !
His death depressed the defenders of Mfinster greatly ;
but they were rallied by the persuasive eloquence of Jan
Bockelson, the favourite disciple of the dead prophet. It
was under the leadership of Bockelson — Jan of Leyden he
was called — that the Town Council of Munster was
abolished ; that twelve elders were chosen to rule the
people ; that Jan himself became king, and had his
Court ; that the old miracle plays were revived, etc.
The only one of the many actions of this highly talented
and eloquent young Dutchman which need concern us
was the institution of polygamy, for which he seems to
have been almost solely responsible.
Polygamy is the one dark stain on the Anabaptists
of Munster, and one that is ineffaceable. Not unnaturally,
yet quite unjustly, the fact of its institution has been
used continually to blacken the character of the whole
movement. It was an episode, a lamentable one, in the
history of Anabaptism in Munster; it had nothing
to do with the brethren outside the town. The whole
question presents difficulties which, with our present
information, cannot be removed. That men whose whole
past ^ lives had been examples of the most correct moral
behaviour, and who had been influenced by deep and
earnest religious feelings, should suddenly (for it . was
sudden) have given the lie to their own previous. teaching
and to the tenets of every separate section of Anal^aptism,
that they should have sullied the last- few months of an
lieroic and desperate defence within a doomed city by the
institution of polygamy, is an insoluble puzzle.^'
We are not now dependent for our knowledge of
^ By far the best and most impartial discussion of the institution of
polygamy in Miinster — one that is based on the very widest examination
of contemporary documentary evidence — is that of Dr. Detmer, Uehcr die
Auffassung von der Ehe und die Dicrchfuhrung der Vieltveib'erei in Munster
wdhrend der Tcmferherrschaft (Miinster, 1904). It forms the third of his
Bilder a us den rcligiosen und sozialai Unruhen in Miinster wdhrend des 16,
Jahrhundcrts.
464 ANABAPTISM \j
the Anabaptist movement on the writings of embittered
opponents, or upon such tainted sources as confessions of
martyrs wrung from them under torture. The diligence
of archaeologists has exhumed a long list of writings of
the leaders in the rising. They give us trustworthy
accounts of the opinions and teachings of almost every
sect classed under the common name. We know what
they thought about all the more important matters which
were in controversy during the sixteenth century — what
they taught about Free Will, Original Sin, Justification,
the Trinity, the Person of Christ, and so on. We have
clear glimpses of the kind of lives they led — a genuinely
pious, self-denying, Christian walk and conversation. Their
teaching was often at variance with the Eomanist and
the Lutheran doctrinal confessions ; but they never varied
from the moral life which all Christians are called upon
to live. Their writings seldom refer to marriage ; but
when they do it is always to bear witness to the universal
and deeply rooted Christian sentiment that marriage is a
sacred and unbreakable union of one man with one
woman. Nay more, one document has descended to us
which bears testimony to the teaching of the Anabaptists
within the beleaguered city only a few weeks before the
proclamation of polygamy. It is entitled Behentones des
globens und lehens der gemein Criste zu Monster^ and was
meant to be an answer to calumnies circulated by their
enemies. It contains a paragraph on Marriage which is
a clear and distinct assertion that the only Christian
marriage is the unbreakable union of one man with one
woman.2
1 The tract is to be found in Cornelius, BeHchte der Augenzeugen iiher
das Tnilnsterische Wiedertdvferreich, which forms the second volume of
Die Jeschiclitsquellen des Bislhums Munster (pp. 445 jf.).
2 " Die ehe, sagen wir und halten mit der Schrift, das sie ist eins mans
und weips vorgaderong und vorpflichtong in dem Herrn . . . Got hot den
menchen von anfaiick geschaffen, ein man und weip hat Er sie gesehaffen,
di peide in den heiligeu estant (ehestat) voreiniget, dos di peide zwo sellen
und ein fleische solen sein. Und mage also kein mensche scheiden seiche
voreiiiigong" (pp. 457, 458).
POLYGAMY 465
It is true that the Anabaptist thought of " separation,"
when carried out in its most extreme way and to its
utmost logical consequences, struck a blow at the sanctity
of the marriage tie. All taught that the " believer," i.e.
he or she who had been rebaptized, ought to keep
themselves separate from the " world," i.e. those who had
not submitted to rebaptism; and in the more extreme
sects it was alleged that this meant that spouses ought
not to cohabit with "unbelieving" partners. This was
held and practised among the Melchiorites, and was stated
in its extremest form in the Twenty-one Eules sent to
Miinster by Jan Matthys by the hand of Bockelson. They
contained two prescriptions — one for the unmarried,
which exhorted them only to marry in the Lord ; another
for the married, which implies that marriage contracted
between husband and wife before rebaptism ought to be
repeated. This meant that marriages contracted by
persons yet " in the world " were not valid, and, of course,
destroyed the sanctity of all marriages outside the circle
of the brethren. But when a Melchiorite at Strassburg,
Klaus Frey, whose wife was not an Anabaptist, carried
out the principle to its logical consequences and married
an Anabaptist woman, his '' unbelieving " wife being alive,
he was promptly excommunicated.
When the information to be gathered from the various
sources is combined, what took place in Miinster seems to
have been as follows. Sometime in July (1534), John
Bockelson summoned the preachers, Eothmann at their
head, and the twelve elders to meet him in the Rathavs.
There he propounded to them his proposal to inaugurate
polygamy, and argued the matter with them for eight
successive days. We are told that Eothmann and the
preachers opposed the scheme in a determined manner.
The arguments used by the prophet — arguments of the
flimsiest nature — have also been recorded. He dwelt on
the necessity of accepting certain biblical expressions in
their most literal sense, and in giving them their widest
application. He insisted especially on the command of
30**
466 ANABAPTISM
God, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth ;
he brought forward the exaraple of the patriarchs and
other examples of polygamy from the Old Testament ; he
went the length of saying that when St. Paul insisted
that bishops must be husbands of one wife, the phrase
implied that all who were not bishops were free to take
more than one ; he dwelt on the special conditions existing
among the population within the town, — the number of
male refugees, either unmarried or who had left their
wives behind them in the places from which they had fled ;
the disproportionate number of women (more than three
women for every man), — and the difficulties thereby
created to prevent them from obeying the command of
God to be fruitful and increase ; and he urged that in
their present condition the command of God could only
be obeyed by means of polygamy.
In the end he brought preachers and elders round to
his opinion ; and in spite of opportunities given them for
revolt, they remained steadfast to it. They preached upon
its advantages for three days to the people in the Cathedral
square ; and it was Eothmann who proclaimed the decree
commanding polygamy to the people. How were the
preachers persuaded to forego their opposition ? What
one of the threadbare arguments used by the prophet
convinced them ? Had he proclaimed polygamy as a
divine command received by him as a prophet, we might
imagine the preachers and people, such was the exalted
state of their minds, receiving it with reverence ; but the
prophet did not announce that he had received any such
message. He relied solely upon his arguments. They
did not convince all the people. The proclamation of
polygamy awoke violent protests upon the part of the
native townsmen, who, headed by a " master-smith " named
Mollenbecke, felt that they would rather hand over the
city to the Bishop's forces than live -in. a polygamist
society, and the revolt was almost successful ; but the
preachers stood firm in their support of the prophet
and of his polygamy ; and it was the women who were
M
. POLYGAMY 467
mainly instrumental in causing the revolt to be a
failure.
If we are to judge by the use made of it in Eoth-
mann's Restitution} which defends the introduction of the
new marriage laws, the preachers seem to have been most
impressed by the argument which dwelt on the condition
of the city — the large proportion of men whose wives
were in the towns they had abandoned to take refuge in
Munster, and the great multitude of women. It is just
possible that it was this economic argument that affected
both them and the prophet himself. This is the view
taken by such writers as Kautsky, Belfort Bax, and
Heath. The explanation is confirmed by the fact that
the decree was more than a proclamation of polygamy.
It provided that all marriageable men must take wives,
and that all women must be under the care of a husband.
The laws against sexual irregularity were as strong
during the reign of polygamy as before its introduction.
But there is this to be said against it, that the town of
Munster, notwithstanding its abnormal conditions, was
singularly pure in life, and that polygamy, so far from
improving the moral condition, made it distinctly worse.
Detmer, whose opinions are always worthy of respect,
believes than Jan of Leyden had fallen violently in love
with the young, beautiful, and intellectual Divara, the
widow of Jan Matthys, and that, as he could not marry
her apart from polygamy, he persuaded his preachers
and elders to consent to his proposals. His wonderful
magnetic influence overbore their better judgment.
What is evident is that the decree of polygamy was
suddenly conceived and forced upon the people. If Jan
of Leyden ^ took no share in its proclamation, he set the
1 The Restitution,, wx'xiieT). by Rothmann and Kloprys in conjunction
with Jan of Leyden and the elders, is published in Bouterwek, Literatur
und Geschichte der Wiedertdufer; marriage and polygamy are treated in
sections 14-16.
- Jan Bockelson, commonly called Jan van Leyden, was the illegitimate
s-cn of a village magistrate, and was born near Leyden in 1510. After a
brief time of education at a village school he was apprenticed to a tailor,
468 ANABAPTISM
people an example of obedience. He promptly married
Divara as soon as it was lawful to do so. He used the
ordinance to strengthen his position. His other wives —
he had sixteen in all — were the daughters or near relations
of the leaders in Miinster. There is evidence to show
that his own character deteriorated rapidly under the new
conditions of life.
The siege of Miinster went on during all these
months. The Bishop's soldiers attempted several assaults,
and were always beaten back. They seem latterly to
have relied on the power of hunger. The sufferings of
the citizens during the later weeks were terrible. At
length Heinrich Gresbeck, deserting to the besiegers' camp,
offered to betray the city to its enemies. He showed
them, by plans and models in clay, how to get through the
defences, and himself prepared the way for the Bishop's
soldiers to enter. The Anabaptists gathered for one last
desperate defence in the market-place, under the leadership
of Bernard KnipperdolHng and Bernard Krechting, with
Kothmann by their side. When the band was reduced to
three hundred men, they capitulated on promise of safe-
conduct to leave the town. It is needless to say that the
bargain was not kept. Eothmann was believed to have
perished in the market-place. The city was given over
to pillage, and the streets were soon strewn with dead
bodies. Then a court was established to try the Ana-
baptist prisoners. The first woman to suffer was the
and in liis leisure hours diligently educated himself. He travelled more
widely than artisans usually did during their year of wandering — visiting
England as well as most parts of Flanders. On his return home he
married the widow of a shipmaster, and started business as a merchant.
He was a prominent member of the literary "gilds" of his town, and had
a local fame as a poet and an actor. His conversion through Jan Matthys
changed his whole life ; there is not the slightest reason to suppose that he
was not an earnest and honest adherent of the Anabaptist doctrines as
taught by Matthys. He is described as strikingly handsome, with a fine
sonorous voice. He had remarkable powers of organisation. His whole
brief life reveals him to be a very remarkable man. He was barely
twenty-five when he was tortured to death by the Bishop of Miinster after
the capture of the town.
MENNO SIMONS 469
fair young Divara. She steadfastly refused to abjure, and
met her fate in her own queenly way. No man who had
been in any way prominent during the siege was allowed
to escape death. Jan Bockelson, Bernard Knipperdolling,
and Bernard Krechting were reserved to suffer the most
terrible tortures that the diabolical ingenuity of mediaeval
executioners could devise. It was long believed that
Kothmann had escaped, and that he had got away to
Eostock or to Liibeck ; more than one person was arrested
on the suspicion of being the famous preacher of Mlinster
— "a short, dark man, w^ith straight brown hair," was his
description in the Liibeck handbills.
« The horrible fate of Miinster 'did not destroy the
indomitable Anabaptists. Menno Simons (b. 1496 or
1505 at Witmarsum, a village near Franecker), "a man of
integrity, mild, accommodating, patient of injuries, and so
ardent in his piety as to exemplify in his own life the
precepts he gave to others," spent twenty-five laborious
years in visiting the scattered Anabaptist communities
and uniting them in a simple brotherly association. He
purged their minds of the apocalyptic fancies taught by
many of their later leaders under the influence of persecu-
tion, inculcated the old ideas of non-resistance, of the evils
of State control over the Church, of the need of personal
conversion, and of adult baptism as its sign and seal.
From his labours have come all the modern Baptist
Churches. '
n
CHAPTER III.
SOCINIANISM.^
The fathers of the Socinian Church were the two Sozzini,
uncle and nephew, Lelio and Fausto, both natives of the
town of Siena. ^ -
The uncle, Lelio Sozzini (b. 1525), was by profession
a lawyer. He was a man of irreproachable moral life, a
Humanist by training, a student of the classics and also
of theology. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with the
condition of the Eomish Church, and early began to
entertain grave doubts about some of its leading doctrinal
positions. He communicated his views to a select circle
of friends. Notwithstanding the precautions he had taken,
he became suspected. Cardinal Caraffa had persuaded
Pope Paul III. to consent, to the reorganisation of the
Inquisition in 1542, and Italy soon became a very unsafe
place for any suspected person. Lelio left Siena in
1547, and spent the remaining portion of his life in
travelling in those lands which had accepted the Lutherah
or the Eeformed faith. He made the acquaintance of all
the leading Protestant theologians, including Melanchthon
and Calvin. He kept up an extensive correspondence
^ Sources : Bihliotheca Fratrum Polonorum (Amsterdam, 1656) i. ii.
Racovian Catechism (London, 1818).
Later Books : Fock, Der Socinianismus nach seiner Stellung in der
GesammtenttvicJclung des christlichen Geistes, nach seinem historischen
Verlauf uiid nach seinem Lehrhegriff dargestelU (Kiel, 1847) ; A Ritschl,
Jahrhiicher f. deutsche Theologies xiii. 268^., 283^. ; A critical History of
the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (Edinburgh,
1872) ; Dilthey, Archiv f. Geschichte d. Fhilos. vi. ; Harnack, History
of Dogma, vii. 118/. (London, 1899).
470
FAUSTO SOZZINI 471
with them, representing his own personal theological
opinions in the form of questions which he desired to
have solved for him. From Calvin's letters we can
learn that the great theologian had grave doubts about
the moral earnestness of his Italian correspondent, and
repeatedly warned him that he was losing hold on the
saving facts of heart religion.
All the while Sozzini seems to have made up his mind
already on all the topics introduced into his correspond-
ence, and to have been communicating his views, on pledge
of secrecy, to the small communities of Italian refugees who
were settled in Switzerland. He can scarcely be blamed
for this secretiveness ; toleration, as the sad example of
the burning of Servede had shown, was not recognised to
be a Christian principle among the Churches of the
Keformation. Lelio died at Zurich in 1562 without
having published his opinions, and without his neighbours
and hosts being aware of his real theological position.
He bequeathed all his property, including his books
and his manuscripts, to his nephew, Fausto, who had
remained at Siena. This nephew was the founder of
the Socinian Church.
, Fausto Sozzini (b. 1539) was, like his uncle, a man
'of irreproachable life, a lawyer, a diligent and earnest
student, fond of theology, and of great force of character.
How early he had come to think as liis uncle had done,
is unknown. Eeport affirms that after he had received
his uncle's books and papers, and had given sufficient
time to their study, he left Italy, visited the places where
Lelio had gathered small companies of secret sympathisers,
, to confirm them in the faith. His uncle had visited
Poland twice, and Fausto went there in 1579. He found
that the anti-Trinitarians there had no need to conceal
their opinions. The Transylvanian Prince, Stephen Bathory,
protected them, and they, had in the town of Krakau their
own church, school, and printing-press. But the sect as a
whole was torn by internal divisions. Fausto bent his
whole encrf^ics to overcome these differences.
472 SOCINIANISM
Before his arrival in Poland he had published two
books, which are interesting because they show the path-
way by which Fausto arrived at his theological conclusions.
He started not with the doctrines of the Trinity or of the
Person of Christ, but with the doctrine of the Atonement
— a fact to be kept in mind when the whole Socinian
system of theology is examined.
I He believed that the real cause of the divisions which
wasted the sect was that the Polish Unitarians were
largely Anabaptists. They insisted that no one could be
a recognised member of the community unless he was
rebaptized. They refused to enroll Fausto Sozzini himself,
and excluded him from the Sacrament of the Supper,
because he would not submit to rebaptism. They declared
that no member of their communities could enter the
magistracy, or sue in a civil court, or pay a war tax.
They disagreed on many small points of doctrine, and used
the ban very freely against each other. Sozzini saw
that he could not hope to make any progress in his
attempts to unite the Unitarians unless he was able to
pm^ge out this Anabaptist leaven. His troubles can be
seen in his correspondence, and in some of his smaller
tracts in the first volume of the Bihliotheca Fratriim
Polonorum} In spite of the rebuffs he met with, he
devoted all his energies to the thankless task of furthering
union, and in the end of his days he had the satisfaction
of seeing that he had not laboured in vain. Shortly
before his death, a synod held at Krakau (1603) declared
that rebaptism was not necessary for entrance into a
Unitarian community. Many of the lesser differences
had been got rid of earlier. The literary activity of
Sozzini was enormous : books and pamphlets flowed from
his untiring pen, all devoted to the enforcing or explaining
the Socinian theology. It is not too much to say that the
inner history of the Unitarian communities in Poland
from 1579 until his death in 1604 is contained in his
voluminous correspondence. The united Unitarians of
^ Tp. 307#.
CRITICISM OF DOCTRINES 473
I Poland took the name of the Polish Brethren] and from
this society what was known as Socinian theology spread
I through Germany (especially the Ehineland), Switzerland,
and England. Its principles were not formulated in
a creed until 1G42, when the Racoman Catechism was
published. It was never formally declared to be the
standard of the Unitarian Church, but its statements are
universally held to represent the views of " the older
Socinians.
\ Socinianism, unlike the great religious movement under
jthe guidance of Luther, had its distinct and definite
jbeginning in a criticism of doctrines, and this must never
jbe forgotten if its true character is to be understood. We
have already seen ^ that there is no trace of any intellectual
difficulties about doctrines or statement of doctrines in
Luther's mind during the supreme crisis in his spiritual
history. Its whole course, from the time he entered the
Erfurt convent down to the publication of the Augsburg
Confession, shows that the spiritual revolt of which he
was the soul and centre took its rise from something
much deeper than any mere criticism of the doctrines of
the mediaeval Church, and that it resulted in something
very much greater than a reconstruction of doctrinal
conc^eptions. The central thing about the Protestant
Eeformation was that it meant a rediscovery of religion
as/fti^A, "as a relation between person -and person, higher
therefore, than all reason, and living not upon commands and
hopes, but on the power of God, and apprehending in Jesus
Christ the Lord of heaven and earth -as Father." ^ xhe
Eeformation started from this living experience of the
believing Christian, which it proclaimed to be the one
fundamental fact in Christianity — something which, could
never be proved by argument, and could never be dissolved
away by speculation.
On the contrary, the earliest glimpse that we have of
Lelio Sozzini is his meeting with friends to discuss and
cast doubts upon such doctrines as ' the Satisfaction of
1 Cf. i. 426.^^. = Harnack, History of Dogma, vii. 167.
474 SOCINIANISM
Christ, the Trinity, and others like them.^ Socinianism
maintained to the end the character with which it came
into being. It was from first to last a criticism and
attempted reconstruction of doctrines.
This is sufficient of itself to discount the usual accounts
which Eomanist controversialists give of the Socinian
movement, and of its relation to the Protestant Eeforma-
tion. They, and many Anglicans who have no sympathy
with the great Keformation movement, are accustomed to
say that the Socinian system of doctrines is the legitimate
deduction from the principles of the Eeformation, and
courageously carries out the rationalist conceptions lurking
in all Protestant theology. They point to the fact that
many of the early Presbyterians of England and Puritans
of America have furnished a large number of recruits to
the Unitarian or Socinian ranks. They assert that the
central point in the Socinian theology is the denial of the
Divinity of our Lord, which they allege is the logical
outcome of refusing to accept the Eomanist doctrine of
the Mass and the principle of ecclesiastical tradition.
The question is purely historical, and can only be
answered by examining the sources of Socinian theology
and tracing it to its roots. The result of such an examina-
tion seems to show that, while Socinianism did undoubtedly
owe much to Humanism, and to the spirit of critical inquiry
and keen sense of the value of the individual which it
fostered, most of its distinguishing theological conceptions
are mediaeval. It laid hold on the leading principles of
the Scotist-Pelagian theology, which were extremely
popular in the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
centuries, and carried them out to their logical consequences.
In fact, most of the theological principles of Socinian
theology are more akin to those of the Jesuit dogmatic — -
which is the prolongation of Scotism into modern times —
than they are to the theology of Luther or of Calvin.
It is, of course, to be remembered that by discarding the
authority of the Church the Socinians are widely separated
1 Cf. p. 427.
FAITH 475
from both Scotists and Jesuits. Still the roots of Socinian
theology are to be found in the Scotist doctrines of God and
Jof the Atonement, and these two doctrines are their starting-
I point, and not the mere negation of the Divinity of Christ.
In three most important conceptions the Socinian
thought is distinctly mediaeval, and medic^eval in the
Scotist way.
Their idea of faith is intellectual. It is ussensus and
no\>ficlucia. " In Scripture," says the Kacovian Catechism,
''the faith is most perfectly taught, that God exists and
that He recompenses. This, however, and nothing else,
is the faith that is to be directed to God and Christ." It is
afterwards described as the way in which one must adjust
himself to the known commands and promises of God;
and there is added that this faith "both makes our
obedience more acceptable and well-pleasing to God, and
supplies the defects of our obedience, provided it be sincere
and earnest, and brings it about that we are justified
by God." This is good Scotist doctrine. These theologians
were accustomed to declare that all that the Christian
needs is to have faith in God as the recompenser (i.e.
to assent to the truth that God does recompense), and
that with regard to all the other doctrines of the Church
impUcit faith {i.e. submission to the Church's teaching) is
enough. Of course the extreme individualism of the
Socinians coloured their conception of faith ; they cannot
accept an implicit faith ; their assent to truth must always
be explicit; what they assent to must recommend itself
to their individual reason. They cannot assent to a round
of truths which are presented to them by the Church, and
receive them implicitly on the principle of obedience to
authority. But what is to be observed here is that the
Socinian type of faith is always assent to truths which
can be stated in prepositional form; they have no idea
of that faith which, to use Luther's phrase, throws itself
upon God. Tbey further declare, quite in accordance with
Scotist teaching, that men are justrfied because of their
actual obedience to the knoum commands and promises of
476 SOCINIANISM
God. There is not a trace of the Evangelical attitude.
The accordance with Scotist theology descends to very
minute particulars, did space permit to trace it.
The Socinian conception of Scripture corresponds to
their idea of faith. The two thoughts of Scripture and
saving faith, as has been already said,^ always correspond
in mediaeval theology they are primarily intellectual and
propositional ; in Eeformation thinking they are, in the
first instance, experimental and personal. The Socinian
conception allies itself with the mediaeval, and discards
the Eeformation way of regarding both faith and Scripture.
With the Socinians as with mediaeval theologians, Scripture
is the divine source of information about doctrines and
morals ; they have no idea of Scripture as a means of
grace, as the channel of a personal communion between
God and His trusting people. But here as elsewhere the
new individualism of the Socinians compels them to establish
both the authority and the dogmatic contents of Scripture
in a way different from their mediaeval predecessors. They
had rejected altogether the authority of the Church, and
they could not make use of the thought to warrant either
the authority of Scripture or a correct interpretation of
its contents. In the place of it they put what they
called reason. " The use of right reason {rectce rationis)
is great in things which pertain to salvation, since without
it, it is impossible either to grasp with certainty the
authority of Scripture, or to understand those things that
are contained in it, or to deduce some things from other
things, or, finally, to recall them to put them to use {ad
usum Tevoca7^i)y The certitudo sacrarum litterarum is
accordingly established, or attempted to be proved, by a
series of external proofs which appeal to the ordinary
reasoning faculties of man. The Reformation conception
of the Witness of the Spirit, an essential part of its
doctrine of Scripture, finds no place in Socinian theology.
They try to establish the authority of Scripture without
any appeal to faith ; the Confessions of the Reformation
* Cf. i. 461.
THE WORK OF CHRIST 477
do not recognise any infallibility or divine authority which
is otherwise apprehended than by faith. The Eeformation
and the Socinian doctrines are miles apart; but the
Socinian and the mediaeval approach each other closely.
It is somewhat difficult to know what books the older .
Socinians recognise as their rule of faith. They did not
accept the Canon of the mediaeval Church. They had no
difficulty about the New Testament ; but the references to
the Old Testament in the Racovian Catechism are very
slight : its authority is guaranteed for them by the refer-
ences to it in the New Testament.
When we turn to the Socinian statements about God,
and to their assertions about the noMre and meaning of
the Work of Christ, we find the clearest proof of their
mediaeval origin. The Scotist theology is simply reproduced,
and cleared of its limitations.
A fundamental conception of God lay at the basis of
the whole Scotist theology. God, it maintained, could
best be defined as Dominium AUolutum ; man as set over
against God they described as an individual free will. If
God be conceived as simply Dominium Ahsolutmn, we can
never affirm that God must act in any given way; we
may not even say that He is bound to act according to
moral considerations. He is high above all considera-
tions of any kind. He does not will to act in any way
because it is right ; and action is right because God wills
to act in that way. There can be neither metaphysical
nor moral necessity in any of God's actions or purposes.
This Scotist idea, that God is the absolutely arbitrary one,
is expresssd in the strongest language in the Racovian
Catechism. " It belongs to the nature of God that He has
the right and supreme power to decree whatsoever He
wills concerning all things and concerning us, even in
those matters with which no other power has to do ;
for example, He can give laws, and appoint rewards and
penalties according to His own judgment, to our thoughts,
hidden as these may be in the innermost recesses of our
hearts."
478 SOCINIANISM
If this thought, that God is simply Dominium Absolutum,
be applied to explain the nature and meaning of the work
of Christ, of the Atonement, it follows at once that there
can be no real necessity for that work ; for all necessity,
metaphysical or moral, is derogatory to the Dorninium
Absolutum, which is God. If the Atonement has merit in
it, that is only because God has announced that He means
to accept the work of Christ as meritorious, and that He
will therefore free men from the burden of sin on account
of what Christ, the Saviour, has done. It is the announced
acceptation of God which makes the work of Christ
meritorious. A meritorious work has nothing in its nature
which makes it so. To be meritorious simply means that
the work so described will be followed by God's doing
something in return for its being done, and this only
because God has made this announcement. God could
have freed men from the guilt and punishment due for
sin without the work of Christ ; He could have appointed a
human mediator if He had so willed it ; He might have
pardoned and accepted man as righteous in His sight
without any mediator at all. He could have simply
pardoned man without anything coming between His act
of pardon and man's sin. Xhis being the case, the Scotist
theologians argued that it might seem that the work of
Christ, called the Atonement, was entirely superfluous ; it
is, indeed, superfluous as far as reason is concerned ; it
can never be justified on rational grounds. But, according
to the dogmatic tradition of the Church, confirmed by
the circle of the Sacraments, God has selected this mode
of getting rid of the sin and guilt of man. He has
announced that He will accept this work of Christ, Atone-
ment, and therefore the Scotist theologians declared the
Atonement must be believed in and seen to be the divinely
appointed way of salvation. Erasmus satirised the long
arguments and hypotheses of the Scotist theologians when
he enumerated among the questions which were highly
interesting to them : " Could God have taken the form of
a woman, a devil, an ass, a gourd, or a stone ? How
THE WORK OF CHRIST 479
could a gourd have preached, done mh^acles, hung on the
Cross ? " 1
It is manifest that this idea of Dominium Ahsolutum
is simply the conception of the extremest individualism
applied to God instead of being used to describe man. If
we treat it anthropomorphically, it comes to this, that the
relation of God to man is that of an infinite Individual
Will set over against a number of finite individual wills. If
this view be taken of the relations between God and man,
then God can never be thought of as the Moral Euler in a
moral commonwealth, but only as a private individual face
to face with other individuals ; and the relations between
God and man must be discussed from the standpoint of
private and not of public law. When wrong-doing is
regarded under the scheme of public law, the ruler can
never treat it as an injury done to himself, and which he
can forgive because he is of a kindly nature ; he must
consider it an offence against the whole community of
which he is the public guardian. On the other hand,
when offences are considered under a scheme of private
law, they are simply wrongs done to a private person who,
as an individual, may forgive what is merely a debt due
to himself. In such a case the wrong-doer may be for-
given without infringing any general moral principle.
The Socinians, following the medieval Scotist theo-
logians, invariably applied the principles of private law
to the relations between God and man. God, the
Dominium Ahsolutum, the Supreme Arbitrary Will, was
never regarded as the Moral Euler in a moral common-
wealth where subjects and rulers are constrained by the
same moral laws. Sins are simply private debts due by
the individual finite wills to the One Infinite Will. From
such premises the Scotists deduced the conclusion that
the Atonement was unnecessary ; there they stopped ;
they could not say that there' was no such thing as
Atonement, for the dogmatic tradition of the Church
prevented them. The Socinians had thrown overboard the
^ Erasmus, Opera Omnia, iv. 465.
480 SOCINIANISM
thought of a dogmatic tradition which had to be respected
even when it appeared to be irrational. If the Atonement
was not necessary, that meant to them that it did not
exist ; they simply carried out the theological premises of
the Scotist-Pelagian mediaeval theologians to their legitimate
consequences.
In these three important conceptions — faith, Scripture,
the nature of God, involving the character of His relations
to man — the Socinians belong to a mediaeval school of
thought, and have no sympathy whatever with the general
principles which inspired Eeformation theological thinking.
But the Socinians were not exclusively mediaeval ;
they owed much to the Eenaissance. This appears in a
jvery marked manner in the way in which they conceived
the very important religious conception of the Church. It
is a characteristic of Socinian theology, that the individual
believw^r is considered without much, if any, reference to
the Church or community of the saved. This separates
the Socinians not only from mediseval Christians, but from
all who belonged to the great Protestant Evangelical
movement.
i The medigeval Church always regarded itself, and
taught men to look to it, as a religious community which
came logically and really before the individual believer.
It presented itself to men as a great society founded on a
dogmatic tradition, possessing the Sacraments, and governed
by an officially holy caste. The pious layman of the
Middle Ages found himself within it as he might have
done within one of its great cathedrals. The dogmatic
tradition did not trouble him much, nor did the worldliness
and insincerity often manifested by its official guardians.
What they required of him was implicit faith, which really
meant a decorous external obedience. That once rendered,
he was comparatively free to worship within what was for
him a great house of prayer. The hymns, the prayers,
many of the sermons of the mediaeval Church, make us
feel that the Institution was for the mediaeval Christian
the visible symbol of a wide purpose of God, which
THE CHURCH 481
embraced his individual life and guaranteed a repose
which he could use in resting on the promises of God.
The records of mediaeval piety continually show us that
the Church was etherealised into an assured and historical
fellowship of believers into which the individual entered,
and within which he found the assuring sense of fellowship.
He left all else to the professional guardians of this
ecclesiastical edifice. Probably such are the- unspoken
thoughts of thousands of devout men and women in the
Eoman and Greek communions to-day. They value the
Church because it represents to them in a visible and
historical way a fellowship with Christ and His saints
which is the result of His redeeming work.
This thought is as deeply rooted in Keformation as in
mediaeval piety. The Reformers felt compelled to protest
against the political form which the mediaeval Church had
assumed. They conceived that to be a degradation from
its ideal. They saw the manifold abuses which the
degradation had given rise to. But they always regarded
visible Christendom as a religious community called into
being by the work of Christ. They had always before
them the thought of the Church of Christ as the fellow-
ship which logically and really comes before the individual
believer, the society into which the believer is brought ;
and this conception stood with them in close and reciprocal
connection with the thought that Jesus, by His work of
Atonement, had reconciled men with God, had founded the
Church on that work of His, and, within it had opened for
sinners the way to God. They protested against the
political form which the Church, had assumed ; they never
ceased to cling to the thought of the Catholic Church
Visible which is founded on the redeeming work of Christ,
and within which man finds the way of salvation. They
described this Church in all their creeds and testimonies ;
they gave the marks which characterised it and manifested
its divine origin ; the thought was an essential part of
their theology.
The Socinians never felt the need of any such con-
482 SOCINIANISM
ception. Jesus was for them only the teacher of a
superior kind of morality detailed in the commands and
promises of God ; they looked to Him for that guidance
and impulse towards a moral self-culture which each man
can appropriate for himself without first coming into a
society which is the fellowship of the redeemed. Had
they ever felt the burden of sin as the Eeformers felt it,
had they ever yearned for such a fellowship with Christ
as whole-hearted personal trust gives, or even for such as
comes in the sense of bodily contact in the Sacrament, had
they ever felt the craving to get in touch with their Lord
somehow or anyhow, they would never have been able to do
without this conception of a Church Catholic of some kind
or other. They never seemed to feel the need of it. The
Eacovian Catechism was compelled to make some reference
to the kingly and priestly offices of Christ. It owed so
much to the New Testament. Its perfunctory sentences
show that our Lord was for the Socinians simply a
Prophet sent from God to proclaim a superior kind of
morality. His highest function was to communicate
knowledge to men, and perhaps to teach them by example
how to make use of it. They had no conception that
Jesus came to do something, for His people, and that what
He did was much more valuable than what He said, how-
ever precious that might be. They were content to become
His scholars, the scholars of a teacher sent from God, and
to become members of His school, where His opinions were
known and could be learned. They had no idea that they
needed to be saved in the deeper sense of that word. They
have no need, therefore, for the conception of the Church ;
what they did need and what they have is the thought of
a school of opinions to which they could belong.^
In this one thought they were equally far apart from
^ A very full analysis of the contents of the Racovian Catechism is given
in Harnack's History of Dogma, vii. 137 ff., also in Fock, Der Socinianismus,
etc. ii. A. Ritschl has shown that the Unitarianism of the Socinians is simply
the legitimate conclusion from their theory of the nature of God and of the
work of Christ, in his two essays in the Jahrbucher f. dentsche Theol. xiii.
268ff., 283ff.
THE CHURCH 483
the circle of mediaeval and of Eeformation theological
thinking. In most of their other theological conceptions
their opinions were inherited from mediaeval theology.
They had little or no connection with Eeformation theology
or with what that represents — the piety of the mediaeval
Church.
BOOK VI.
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION.
CHAPTER I.
THE NECESSITY OF A REFORMATION OF SOME SORT
UNIVERSALLY ADMITTED.^
In the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
centuries the urgent need for a Keformation of the Church
was recognised by all thoughtful men everywhere throughout
western Europe, and was loudly expressed by almost every-
one outside the circle of the influence of the Eoman Curia.
Statesmen and men of letters, nobles and burghers, great
Churchmen as well as monks and parish priests — all be-
wailed the condition of the organised Christian life, and
most of them recognised that the unreformed Papacy was
* Sources : Laemmer, Momimenta Vaticana historiam ecdesinsticam seeuli
16 illustrantia (Freiburg i. B. 1861) ; Weiss, Papiers d'Mat du Cardinal
Perronet de GranveUe (in the Collection des documents inedits de I'Histoire
de France, 1835-49) ; Fiedler, Relationen Venetianischer Botscha/ten iiher
Deutschland und Oesterreich im IGten Jahrhunderte (in the Pontes Rerum
Austriacarum, Diplomatica et Acta, xxx., Vienna, 1870) ; Friedenburo-
Nuntiaiurberichte aus Deutschland, 1533-39 (Gotha, 1892-93) ; Carteggio %
Vittoria Colonna (Rome, 1889).
Later Books : Marrenbrecher, GescMchte der Tcatholischen Reformation
(Nordlingen, 1880— only one volume published, which ends with 1534) ;
also Karl V. und die deutschen Protestanten (Diisseldorf, 1865) ; Ranke, Die
romischen Papste, ihre Kirehe icnd ihr Staat im sechszehnten und siehzehentcn
Jahrhundert ; Gothein, Ignatius von Loyola und die Ge genre/or mation
(Halle, 1895) ; Philippson, La Contre- Revolution rcligieuse du 16e sitcle
(Brussels, 1884) ; Ward, The Counter-Rcformatim (London, 1889) ; Dupin,
Histoire de VEglise du 16e siecle (Paris, 1701-13) ; Jerrold, Vittoria Colonna
(London, 1906).
484
NEED FOR REFORMATION 485
the running sore of Europe. The protest against the
state of religion was not confined to individual outcries ;
it found expression in the States-General of France, in the
Diet of Germany, and in the Parliament of England.
The complaints took many forms. One of the most
universal was that the clergy, especially those of higher
rank, busied themselves with everything save the one thing
[Which specially belonged to them — the cure" of souls.
They took undue share in the government of the countries
of Europe, and ousted the nobles from their legitimate
places of rule. Clerical law-courts interfered constantly
with the lives of burghers ; and the clergy protested that
they were not bound to obey the ordinary laws of the land.
A brawling priest could plead the " benefit of clergy " ; but
a layman who struck a priest, no matter what the pro-
vocation, was liable to the dread penalty of excommunica-
tion. Their " right of sanctuary " was a perpetual
encouragement to crime.^ They and their claims menaced
the quiet life of civilised towns and States. Constitutional
lawyers, trained by Humanism to know the old imperial law
codes of Theodosius and Justinian, traced these evils' back
to the interference of Canon Law with Civil, and that to
the universal and absolute dominion of a papal absolutism.
The Reformation desired, floated before the minds of states-
men as a reduction more or less thorough of the papal
absolutism, and of the control exercised by the Pope and
the clergy over the internal affairs of the State,* even its
national ecclesiastical regulations. The historical fact that
the loosely formed kingdoms of the Middle Ages were being
slowly transformed into modern States, perhaps furnished
unconsciously the basis for this idea of a Peformation.
The same thought took another and more purely ecclesi-
astical form. The papal absolutism meant frequently that
Italians received preferments all over western Europe, and
supplanted the native clergy in the more important and
richer benefices. Why should the Churches of Spain,
^ C(. A Relation . , . of the Island of Enfjland . . . about the year 1500
(Camden Sockty, London, 1847), pp. 34-36, 86-89.
486 THE NECESSITY OF A REFORMATION
England, or France be ruled by Italian prelates, whether
resident or non-resident ? It was universally felt that
Eoman rule meant a lack of spirituality, and was a source
of religious as well as of national degradation. Men
longed for a change, clergy as well as laity ; and the
thought of National Churches really independent of Eome,
if still nominally under the Western Obedience, filled the
minds of many Eeformers.^
The early mediaeval Church had been a stern preacher
of righteousness, had taught the barbarous invaders of
Europe lessons of pure living, honesty, sobriety ; it had
insisted that the clergy ought to be examples as well as
preachers ; Canon Law was full of penalties ordained to
check clerical vices. But it was notorious that the higher
clergy, whose duty it was to put the laws in execution,
were themselves the worst offenders. How could Enghsh
Bishops enforce laws against incontinence, when Wolsey,
Archbishop, Cardinal, and Legate, had made his illegitimate
daughter the Abbess of Salisbury ? What hope was there
for strict discipline when no inconsiderable portion of a
Bishop's annual income came from money paid in order
to practise clerical incontinence in security ? Eeformers
demanded a reformation of .clerical morals, beginning with
the Bishops and descending through all grades to monks
and nuns.^
^ Cf. i. 36.
2 This had been protested against for a century and a half, not merely by
individual moralists, but by such conventions of notables as the English
Parliament ; cf. Rolls of Parliament, ii. 313-14 ; Item, " prie la Comnnme que
comme autre foithz au Parlement tenuz a Wyncestre, supplie y fuist par la
Commune de remedie de ce que les Prelatz et Ordinares de Seint Esglise
pristrent sommes pecuniers de gentz de Seint Esglise et autres pur redemp-
tion de lour pecche de jour en jour, et an en an, de ce que ils tiendrent
overtement lours concubines ; et pur autres pecches et offenses a eux sunnys,
dount peyne pecunier ne serroit pris de droit : Quele chose est cause, mein-
tenance et norisement de lour pecche, en overte desclandre, et mal ensample
de tut la Commune ; quele chose issint continue nient duement puny, est
desesploit au Roi et a tout le Roialme. Qe pleise a nostre Seigneur le Roi
ent ordeiner que touz tiels redemptions soient de tut ousteiz ; et que si mil
viegne encontre ceste Ordeinance, que le prenour encourge la somme del
double issint pris devers la Roi et cely que le paie eit mesme la peyne."
NATIONAL CHURCHES 487
Humanism brought forward yet another conception of
reform. It demanded either a thorough repudiation of the
whole of Scholastic Theology and a return to the pure and
simple " Christian Philosophy " of the Church of the first
six centuries, or such a relaxation of that Scholastic as would
afford room for the encouracjement of the New Learning.
Lastly, a few pious souls, with the clear vision of God
which purity and simplicity of heart and "mind give,
declared that the Church had lost religion itself, and that
the one reformation needed was the rediscovery of religion
and the gracious enlightenment of the individual heart and
conscience.^
The first conception of a reformation which looked for
a cure of the evils which all acknowledged to the supremacy
of the secular over ecclesiastical rule, may be seen in the
reformation of the local Churches of Brandenburg and
Saxony under Frederick of Brandenburg and William of
Saxony. Archbishop Cranmer believed that the only way
of removing the evils under which the Church of the later
Middle Ages was groaning was to subordinate the ecclesi-
astical to the secular powers. The reformation of the
Church of England under Henry viii. carried out this idea
to practical issue, but involved with it a nominal as well
as a real destruction of the political unity of the mediaeval
Church. His actions were carefully watched and admired
by many of the German Eomanist Princes, who made more
than one attempt, about the year 1540, to create a National
Church in Germany under secular guidance, and remaining
true to mediaeval doctrine, hierarchy, and ritual.^ The
thought of a reformation of this kind was so familiar to
men of the sixteenth century, that the probability of
Henry viii.'s separation from Eome was matter of discussion
long before it had entered into the mind of that monarch.*
1 Cf. i. 166, 213. - Cf. vol. i. 140, 141, 378 ; vol. ii.
^ Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, oftlte Reign of Henry VIII.,
iv., Preface, p. 485. Cf. Brown, Fascicuhis rerum expedendarum et fugi-
endarum (1690), pp. 19, 20, for tlie speech of an English Bishop at Rome
(Nov. 27 th, 1425), saying tliat if the Curia does not speedily undertake
the work of Keformation, the secular powers must interfere.
CHAPTER 11.
THE SPANISH CONCEPTION OF A REFORMATION.^
§ 1. The Religious Co7idition of Spain.
The country, however, where all these various concep-
tions of what was meant by a reformation of the Church
were combined in one definite scheme of reform which
was carried through successfully, was Spain. It is to that
country one must turn to see what mediaevalists, who were
at the same time reformers, wished to effect, and what they
meant by a reformation of the Church. It included a
measure of secular control, a revival and enforcement of
all canonical laws framed to purify the morals of the
clergy, a measured accommodation with Humanism, a
steady adherence to the main doctrines of the Scholastic
Theology, the preservation in their entirety of the hierarchy,
the rites and tho usages of the mediaeval Church, and a
ruthless suppression of heresy. Spain furnishes the
example of what has been called the Catholic Keformation.
In Spain, as nowhere else in mediaeval Europe, the
firm maintenance of the Christian religion and patriotism
had been felt to be one and the same thing. The seven
hundred years' war, which the Christians of Spain had
waged with the Moors, had given strength and tenacity to
their religious sentiments, and their experience as
^ Lea, Chapters from the Religious History of Spain (Philadelphia, 1890) ;
Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella (London, 1887) ; V. de la Fuente, Historia
eclesiastiea en Espana (Madrid, 1873, etc.) ; Menendezy Palayo, Los Hetero-
doxos Espanoles (Madrid, 1880) ; Hefele, The Cardinal Ximenes (London,
1860) ; Paul Rousselot, Les Mystiques Esimgnols (Paris, 1867).
488
THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF SPAIN 489
Christians in daily battle with an enemy of alien race and
alien faith, left to themselves in their Peninsula, cut off
from the rest of Europe, had made them cling all the
more closely to that visible solidarity of all Christian
people which found expression in the mediaeval conception
of the medieval Catholic Church. Spain had given birth
to the great missionary monastic order of the Dominicans,
the leaders of an intellectual crusade .against the
penetrating influence of a Moslem pantheism (Averroism),
— and to the great repressive agency of the Inquisition in
its sternest and most savage form. It was Spain that was
to furnish the Counter-Eeformation, with its most devoted
leader, Ignatius Loyola, and with its strongest body of
combatants, the Society of Jesus which he founded.
It need scarcely be wondered at that it was in Spain
that we find the earhest systematic attempts made to save
the Church from the blindness and perversity of its rulers
by the mterposition of the secular authority to combat
the deteriorating influence of the Roman Curia upon
the local Church, and to restore discipline among the
clergy. The Cortes of the various small kingdoms of
the Spanish Peninsula repeatedly interfered to limit the
overgrowth of clerical privileges, to insist on the submis-
sion of the clergy to the common law of the land, and to
prevent the too great preponderance of clerical influence
in secular administration. The ordinances of their Kings
were used, time after time, to counteract the influence of
harmful papal Bulls, and to prevent the interference of
Italian ecclesiastics in the affairs of .the Spanish Church.
In the end of the fifteenth century the Spanish lUshops had
been reduced to a state of dependence on the Crown ; all
exercise of ecclesiastical authority was caiefully watched ;
the extent of ecclesiastical jurisdiction was specifically
limited, and clerical courts were made to feel their depend-
ence on the secular tribunals.. The Crown wrung from the
Papacy the right to see that piety and a zeal for religion
were to be indispensable qualifications for clerical promotion.
All this regulative zeal was preserved from being simply
490 THE SPANISH CONCEPTION OF A REFORMATION
the attempts of politicians to control a rival power by
certain fundamental elements in the national religious
character, which expressed themselves in rulers as well as
in the mass of their subjects. In Spain, more than in any
other land, asceticism and mystical raptures were recognised
to be the truest expression of genuine religious sentiment.
Kings and commonalty alike shared in the firm belief that
a real imitation of Christ meant to follow in the footsteps
of the Man of Sorrows, who wandered about not knowing
where to lay His head, and who was enabled to endure
what was given Him to do and to suffer by continuous and
rapt communion with the Unseen.
The ecclesiastical Reformer of Spain had all these
elements to work upon, and they made his task compara-
tively easy,
§ 2. Reformation under Ximenes.
The consolidation of the Peninsula under Ferdinand
and Isabella suggested a thorough reorganisation of the
Spanish Church. The Crown extorted from the Papacy
extraordinary powers to deal with the secular clergy and
with the monasteries. The great Queen was determined to
purge the Church of her realm of all that she deemed
to be evil. She called to her councils three famous
Churchmen in whom she had thorough confidence — the
great Spanish Cardinal, Mendoza, her confessor, Fernand,^:
de Talavera, and Francesco Ximenes. It was Ximenes
who sketched the plan and who carried through the
reformation.
Francesco Ximenes de Cisneros, as he is called, had
been a Franciscan monk devoted to the ideals of his order.
He belonged to a poor family, and had somehow or other
attracted the attention of Cardinal Mendoza, at whose
instigation the Queen had made him her father-confessor
(1492). She insisted an his accepting the dignity of
Archbishop of Toledo (1.495), and had selected him to
carry out her plans for the organisation and purification of
REFORMATION UNDER XIMENES 491
the Spanish Church. After his elevation to the arch-
episcopal chair he gave the example of what he believed
to be the true clerical life bj following in the most literal
way the maxims of St. Francis about self-denial, devotion,
and ascetic life. He made these the ideal for the Spanish
clergy ; they followed where he led.
The Concordat of 1482 gave the Spanish Crown the
right of " visitation " (held to involve the power to dismiss
from office) and of nomination to benefices. Ximenes
used these powers to the full. He " visited " the monas-
teries personally, and received full reports about the
condition of the convents. He re-established in all of
them monastic discipline of the strictest kind. The secular
clergy were put to like proof. The secular power was
invoked to sweep all opponents to reform from his path.
His Queen protected him when the vacillations of the
papal policy threatened to hinder his work. In the end,
the Church in Spain secured a devoted clergy whose
personal life was free from the reproaches justly levelled
at the higher clergy of other lands.
Ximenes, having purified the morals of the Spanish
clergy, next set himself to overcome ineir ignorance and
lack of culture. In every Chapter within Castile and
Aragon, two prebends were set apart for scholars, one
of them for a student in Canon Law, and the other for an
expert theologian. A special "visitation" of the clergy
removed from their places all utterly ignorant^ persons.
New schools of theology were instituted. In addition to
the mediaeval Universities of Salamanca and Valladolid,
Ximenes founded one in Alcala, another in Seville, a third
at Toledo, Alcala and Valladolid were the principal
theological schools, and there, in addition to the older
studies of Dogmatic Theology and Ethics, courses of lectures
were given in Biblical Exegesis. The theology taught was
that of Thomas Aquinas, to .the exclusion of the later
developments of Scholastic under John Duns Scotus and
William of Occam. The Augustinian elements in Thomas
were specially dwelt upon ; and soon there arose a school of
492 THE SPANISH CONCEPTION OF A REFORMATION
theologians who were called the New Thomists, who became
very powerful, and were later the leading opponents of the
Jesuit teachers. There was also an attempt to make use
of the New Learning in the interest of the old theology.
Ximenes collected at Alcala the band of scholars who
under his superintendence prepared the celebrated Com-
plutensian Polyglot.
The labours of Erasmus were sympathised with by
the leaders of this Spanish movement. The Princes of the
Church delighted to call themselves his friends. They
prevented the Spanish monks from attacking him even
when he struck hardest at the follies of the monastic life.
He was esteemed at Court. The most prominent statesmen
who surrounded Charles, the young Prince of the Nether-
lands, the King of Spain, called themselves Erasmians.
Erasmus, if we are to believe what he wrote to them, —
which is scarcely possible, — declared that the work in
Spain under Ximenes followed the best type of a reforma-
tion in the Church.
But there was another and terrible side to this
Spanish purification of the Church and of the clergy
The Inquisition had been reorganised, and every opinion
and practice strange to the mediaeval Church was relentlessly
crushed out of existence. This stern repression was a
very real part of the Spanish idea of a reformation.
The Spanish policy for the renovation of the Church
was not a reformation in the sense of providing room
for anything new in the religious experience. Its sole
aim was to requicken religious life within the limits
which had been laid down during the Middle Ages. The
hierarchy was to remain, the mediaeval conceptions of
priesthood and sacraments ; the Pope was to continue to be
the acknowledged and revered Head of the Church ; " the
sacred ceremonies, decrees, ordinances, and sacred usages " ^
were to be left untouched ; the dogmatic theology of the
^ Cf. paper read by Charles v. to the Estates of Germany at Worms
— Wrede, Deutsche Reichstaysaktcn unter Kaiser Karl v. (Gotha, 1896)
ii. 595.
THE SPANIARDS AND LUTHER 493
mediaeval Church was to remain in all essentials the same
as before. The only novelty, the only sign of appreciation
of new ideas which were in the air, was that the papal
interference in the affairs of national Churches was
greatly limited, and that at a time when the Papacy had
become so thoroughly secularised as to forget its real
duties as a spiritual authority. The sole recognition of
the new era, with its new modes of thought, was the
proposal that the secular authorities of the countries of
Europe should undertake duties which the Papacy was plainly
neglecting. Perhaps it might be added that the slight
homage paid to the New Learning, the appreciation of the
need of an exact text of the original Scriptures, its guarded
approval of the laity's acquaintance with Holy "V\'rit,
introduced something of the new spirit ; but these things
did not really imply anything at variance with what a
devoted adherent of the mediaeval Church might readily
acquiesce in.
§ 3. The Spaniards and Luther.
1 Devout Spaniards were able to appreciate much in
' Luther's earlier work. They could sympathise with his
attack on Indulgences, provided they did not inquire too
closely into the principles implied in the Theses — -principles
which Luther himself scarcely recognised till the Leipzig
Disputation. Their hearts responded to the intense
religious earnestness and high moral tone of his earlier
writings. They could welcome his appearance, even when
they could not wholly agree with all that he said, in the hope
that his utterances would create an impetus towards the
kind of reformation they desired to see. The reformation
of the Spanish Church under Cardinal Ximenes enables us
to understand both the almost universal welcome which
greeted Luther's earlier appearances and the opposition
which he afterwards encountered from many of his earlier
supporters. Some light is also cast" on that opposition
when we remember that the Emperor Charles himself
494 THE SPANISH CONCEPTION OF A REFORMATION
fully accepted the principles underlying the Spanish
Reformation, and that they had been instilled into his
youthful mind by his revered tutor whom he managed to
seat in the chair of St. Peter — Adrian_ vi., whose short-
lived pontificate was an attempt to force the Spanish
Eeformation on the whole of the Western Obedience.
If it be possible to accept the statements made by
Glapion, the Emperor's confessor, to Dr. Briick, the Saxon
Chancellor in the days before Luther's appearance at
Worms, as a truthful account of the disposition and
intentions of Charles v., it may be said that an attempt
was made to see whether Luther himself might be made
to act as a means of forcing the Spanish Reformation on
the whole German Church. Glapion professed to speak
for the Emperor as well as for himself. Luther's earlier
writings, he said, had given him great pleasure ; he
believed him to be a " plant of renown," able to produce
splendid fruit for the Church. But the book on the
Babylonian Captivity had shocked him ; he did not believe
it to be Luther's ; it was not in his usual style ; if
Luther had written it, it must have been because he was
momentarily indignant at the papal Bull, and as it was
anonymous, it could easily be repudiated ; or if not
repudiated, it might be explained, and its sentences shown
to be capable of a catholic interpretation. If this were
done, and if Luther withdrew his violent writings against
the Pope, there was no reason why an amicable arrange-
ment should not be come to. The papal Bull could
easily be got over, it could be withdrawn on the ground
that Luther had never had a fair trial. It was a mistake
to suppose that the Emperor was not keenly alive to the
need for a Reformation of the Church ; there were limits
to his devotion to the Pope ; the Emperor believed that
he would deserve the wrath of God if he did not try to
amend the deplorable condition of the Church of Christ.
Such was Glapion's statement. It is a question how far
he was sincere, and if so, whether he really did express
what was in the mind of the Emperor. Frederick of
THE SPANIARDS AND LUTHER 495
Saxony did not believe either in his sincerity or in his
representation of the Emperor's real opinions ; and Luther
himself refused all private conference with Glapion. Yet
it is almost certain that Glapion did express what many
an earnest Spanish ecclesiastic thoroughly believed. We
have an interesting confirmation of this in the conversation
which Conrad Pellican had with Francisco de los Angeles,
the Provincial of the Spanish Franciscans at Basel. The
Franciscan expressed himself in almost the very same
terms as Glapion.^
Three forces met at the Diet of Worms in 1521 —
the German movement for Eeform inspired by Luther, the
Spanish Eeformation represented by Charles v., and the
stolid inertia of the Eoman Curia speaking by the Nuncio
Aleander. The first and the second could unite only if
Luther retraced his steps and stood where he did before
the Leipzig Disputation. If he refused, the inevitable result
was that the Emperor and the Curia would combine to
crush him before preparing to measure their strength
against each other. The two different conceptions of
reform may be distinguished from each other by saying
that the Spanish conception sought to awaken the benumbed
and formalist mediseval Church to a new religious life,
leaving unchanged its characteristics of a sacerdotal
ministry, an external visible unity under a hierarchy
culminating in the Papacy, and a- body of doctrine
guaranteed by the decisions of (Ecumenical > Councils.
The other wished to free the human spirit from the
fetters of merely ecclesiastical authority, and to requicken
the life of the Church through the spiritual priesthood of
all believers. The former sought the aid of the secular
^ "Is Csesaris consanguineus, legatus missus a Wormacia, festinando
ad Hispanos pro sedando quodam tumultu. Is in profesto vigiliie natalicii
dominici superveniens eques, cum ministris, biduo manens integro ct
tiibus noctibus, mihi multiim loquebatur de causa Lutherana, quae magna
ex parte arridebat viro bono et- docto, prreter librum de captivitate Babel,
quern legerat Wormatise cum moerore et displicentia, queni ego noiiduin
videram " (Riggenbach, Das Chronikon dcs Koiirad Pellikan, p. 77
(Basel, 1877).
496 THE SPANISH CONCEPTION OF A REFORMATION
power to purge national Churches and restore ecclesiastical
discipline, but always under a decorous air of submission
to the Bishop of Kome, and with a very real belief in the
supremacy and infallibility of a General Council. The
latter was prepared to deny the authority of the Bishop
of Eome altogether, and to see the Church of the Middle
Ages broken up into territorial or National Churches,
each of which, it was contended, was a portion of the one
Visible Catholic Church. But as separate tendencies may
be represented by a single contrast, it may be said that
Charles would have forgiven Luther much had the
Eeformer been able to acknowledge the infallibihty of a
General Council. The dramatic wave of the hand by
which Charles ended the altercation between Official Eck
and Luther, when the latter insisted that General Councils
had erred, and that he could prove it, ended the dream
that the movement in Germany could be used to aid in
the universal introduction of the Spanish Eeformation.
If the ideas of reforming Spanish ecclesiastics and states-
men were to requicken the whole mediaeval Church,
some other way of forcing their acceptance had to be
found.
§ 4. Pope Adrian vi. and tJie Spanish Reformation.
The opportunity seemed to come when, owing to the
rivalries of powerful Cardinals and the steady pressure of
Charles v. on the Conclave, Adrian of Utrecht was
elected Pope. The new Pontiff had a long reputation
for learning and piety. His courage had been manifested
in his fearless denunciation of prevailing clerical abuses,
and in the way he had dealt with difficult questions in
mediaeval theology. He had no sympathy with the new
curialist ideas of papal inerrancy and infallibility, nor
with the repeated assertions of Italian canonists that the
Pope was superior to all ecclesiastical law. He rather
believed that such ideas were responsible for the degrada-
tion of the Church, and that no amendment was possible
POPE ADRIAN VI. AND THE SPANISH REFORMATION 497
until the whole system of papal reservations, exemptions,
and other ways in which the Papacy had evaded the
plain declarations of Canon Law, was swept away. The
public confidence in his piety, integrity, and learning was
so great that the Netherlands had entrusted him with
the religious education of their young Prince, and none of
his instructors so stamped themselves on the mind of
Charles.
j Adrian was a Dutch Ximenes. He had the same
[passionate desire for the Keformation of the Church, and
the same ideas of how such Keformation could be brought
about. He prized the ascetic Hfe ; he longed to see the
monastic orders and the secular clergy disciplined in the
strictest way ; he had a profound admiration for Thomas
Aquinas, and especially for that side of the great School-
maSlieaching which represented the ideas of St. Augustine.
He so exactly reproduced in his own aspirations the
desires of the Spanish Keformers, that Cardinal Carvajal,
who with the grave enthusiasm of his nation was engaged
in the quixotic task of commending the Spanish Eeforma-
tion to the authorities in Kome, desired to take him there
as an indispensable assistant. He was also in full
sympathy with the darker side of the Spanish Eeforma-
tion. During his sojourn in Spain he had become one of
the heads of the Inquisition, and was Hrmly opposed to
any relaxation of the rigours of the Holy Office. With
Adrian in the chair of St. Peter, the Emperor' and the
leaders of the Spanish Church might hope to see their
type of a reformation adopted to cure the ills under ivhich
the Church was suffering.
The new Pope did not lack sympathisers in Italy
when he began his task of cleansing the Augean stables
without turning the torrent of revolution through them.
Cardinal Carvajal welcomed him in a speech which ex-
pressed his own ideas if it displeased his colleagues in
whose name he was supposed to speak. A memorial
drafted by Egidio, General of the Augustinian Eremites,
was presented to him, which practically embodied the
32**
498 THE SPANISH CONCEPTION OF A REFORMATION
reforms the new Pope wished to see accomplished.^ His
programme was as extensive as it was thorough. A large
part of it may be compared with the reforms sketched in
Luther's Address to the Nobility of the German Nation.
He disapproved of the way in which prehends were taken
from foundations within national Churches to swell the
incomes of Eoman Cardinals. He disliked the whole
system of papal reservations, indults^ exemi^tions, expectances,
which under the fostering care of Pope John xxii. had
converted the Curia into a great machine for raking in
money from every corner of western Europe.^ He dis-
approved of the system of encouraging complainants to
pass over the episcopal courts of their own lands and bring
their cases at once before the papal court. But every one
of these reforms would cut off a source of revenue. It
meant that hundreds of hungry Italian Humanists would
lose their pensions, and that as many pens would lampoon
the Holy Father who was intent on taking bread from his
children. It meant that hundreds of ecclesiastical lawyers
who had invested their savings in purchasing places in the
Curia, would find themselves reduced to penury. It
meant that the incomes of the Princes of the Church
would shrink in an incalculable manner. Adrian set
himself to show such men how to meet the changes in
prospect. He brought his old Flemish peasant housekeeper
with him to Eome, contented himself with the simple
dishes she cooked for him, and lived the life of an anchorite
in a corner of his vast palace on the Vatican hill ; but in
' this case example did not seem better than precept. It
had seemed so easy to the simple-minded Dutch scholar to
^ Carvajal's speech and Egidio's memoir are given in Hofler, "Analecten
z. Geschich. Deutsehlands und Italiens " {Abhandlungen der Miinch. Akad.
IV. iii. 57-89).
^ An indult can be best explained by an example : according to the
Council of Bourges (1438), the selection of French Bishops was left ex-
clusively in the hands of the Chapters of the Cathedrals ; but Pope Eugenius
IV. permitted Charles vii. the right to appoint to several specified bishoprics \
such a papal grant was called an indult.
3 Cf. vol. i. 12/.
POPE ADRIAN VI, AND THE SPANISH REFORMATION 499
reform the Church ; everything was provided for in the
Canon Law, whose regulations had only to be put in
force. His Spanish experience had confirmed him in the
possibility of the task. But at Rome he found a system
of Eules of Chancery which could not be set aside all at
once ; there was no convenient Inquisition so organised
that it could clear all objectors out of his path ; no secular
power always ready to support a reforming Churchman.
Where was he to begin ? The whole practice of
Indulgences appeared to be what was most in need of
reform. Its abuses had kindled the storm in Germany.
To purge them away would show how nmch in earnest he
was. He knew the subject well. He had written upon
it, and therefore had studied it from all sides. Rightly
understood, Indulgences were precious things. They
sho.wed how a merciful God had empowered His Church to
declare that He pardoned sins freely ; and, besides, they
proclaimed, as no other usage of the Church did, the
brotherhood of all believers, within which the stronger
could help the weaker, and the holier the more sinful, and
all could fulfil the law of Christ by bearing each other's
burdens. Only it was to be remembered that every pardon
required a heart unfeignedly penitent, and the sordid taint
of ^money must be got rid of. But — there was always a
" but " for poor Adrian — it was shown to him that the
papal court could not possibly pay its way without the
money which came in so easily from the sale of Indulgences.
He was baffled at the very start ; checks, for the most
part quite unexpected, thwarted eveiy effort. He was
like a man in a nightmare, set in a thicket of thorns,
where no hewing could set him free, clothes torn. Limbs
bleeding, till at last he sank exhausted, welcoming the
death which freed him from his impossible task. Adrian
was the distinguished martyr of the Spanish Reformation.
History has dwelt upon his failures ; they were only too
manifest. It has derided his simplicity in sending
Chieregati to Germany with the confession that the Curia
was the source of most of the evils which beset th(!
500 THE SPANISH CONCEPTION OF A REFORMATION
mediaeval Church, and at the same time demanding the
death of Luther, who had been the first to show the fact
in such a way that all men could see it. It has said little
of the success that came in due time. Chieregati was
unable to overcome the deeply rooted Evangelical Eeforma-
tion in Germany. But his mission and the honest state-
ment that the Curia was the seat of evil in the Church,
date the beginnings of a reaction, of a genuine Komanist
party with a vague idea of reforms on mediaeval lines. It
must be taken as the starting-point of the Counter-
Eeformation in Germany. Adrian's example, too, did
much to encourage the few spiritually minded Churchmen
in Italy, and its effects can be seen in the revival of a
zeal to purify the Church which arose during the pontificate
of Paul III.
CHAPTER III.
ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS AND THEIR
CONCEPTION OF A REFORMATION,^
§ 1. The Religious Condition of Italy.
Italy is the land which next to Spain is the most import-
ant for the Counter-Keformation. While we can trace in
Spain and in Germany a certain solidarity of religious
movement, the spiritual conditions of Italy during the first
half of the sixteenth century were as manifold as its
political conditions. It is impossible to speak of the
Italians as a whole. Italy had been the land of the Eeuais-
sance, but that great intellectual movement had never
rooted itself deeply in the people as it had done in
Germany, France, or England.
The Italian peasantry were a class apart from the
burghers as they were nowhere else. Their religion was
usually a thinly veiled paganism, a belief in the omni-
presence of spirits, good and bad, to be' thanked, propitiated,
coaxed or compelled by use of charms, amulets,' spells, ^ind
^Sources: Contarini, Opera (Paris, 1571); Correspondenz ContaHvi!<,
ed. by L. Pastor (1880) ; Cortese, Epistolariim familiarum /if&er (Venice,
1573) ; Ghiberti, Opera (Verona, 1740) ; Sadoleto, Epistolarum lihrisexdecim
(Lyons, 1560) ; Pole, Epistolce, et aliorum ad ipsmn (Brescia, 1744-57),
Carteggio di Vittoria Colonna (Turin, 1889) ; Vergerio, Brief wechsel (edited
for the Bibliothek des literarischen Vercivs, Stuttgart, 1875),
Later Books : Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilisatmi of the Period of the
Renaissance (Eng. trans., London, 1892) ; Symonds, Renaissance in Italy.
The Catholic Reaction (London, 1886) ; Cantu, Gli Eretici d'ltaUa (Turin,
1865-67) ; Braun, Cardinal Gasparo Contarini (1903) ; Dittrich, Gasparo
Contarini (Braunsberg, 1883) ; Duruy, Le Cardinal Carlo Caraffa (Paris,
1882) ; Gothein, Ignatius Loyola und die Gegenrcformation, pp. 77-207
(Halle, 1895) ; v. Rcumont, Vittoria Colonna (Freiburg i. B. 1881).
501
502 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
ceremonies. The gods of their pagan ancestors had been
replaced by local saints, and received the same kind of
worship. To fight for their faith had never been a
tradition with them as with the Spaniards ; they were not
troubled by any continuous sense of sin as were the people
of the northern nations ; but they had an intense fear of
the supernatural, and their faith in the priest, who could
stand between them and the terrors of the unseen, was
boundless. Goodness touched them as it does all men.
But the immorality of their religious guides did not
embarrass them ; a bad priest had as powerful spells as a
good one. The only kind of Christianity which seemed
able to impress them and hold them was that of Francis of
Assisi. He was the highest embodiment of the Christian
spirit for the Italian peasantry ; the impression he had
made upon the people of the Peninsula was enduring ; the
wandering revivalist preacher who lived as Francis had
done always made the deepest impression. John of
Capistrano owed much of his power to the fact that he
remained always the Abruzzi peasant. During the whole
of the period of the Renaissance the peasantry and the
clergy who served the village chapels were regarded by
those above them with a scorn that degenerated into
hatred. We may search in vain through the whole of
the literature of the time for the thought that any
attempt ought to be made to lead them to a deeper
faith and a purer life. The whole of the peasant popula-
tion of Italy were believed to be beneath the level of
desire for something better than what the religious life
of the times gave.^
* Medifeval songs tell us that this hatred of the peasantry is much older
than the Renaissance :
** Si quis scire vult naturam,
Maledictam et obscuram
Rusticorum genituram
Infelicem et non puram
Denotent sequentia," etc.
Carmiim Medii ^vi (Florence, 1883), p. 34 ; the song belongs to the
thirteenth century.
THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF ITALY 503
The towns presented an entirely different picture.
There was a solidarity binding together all the civic popu-
lation. The ordinary division of ranks, made by greater
or less possession of wealth or by social standing, existed,
but it did not prevent a common mode of thinking. We
can trace the same thoughts among artisans, small shop-
keepers, rich merchants, and the patricians of the towns.
No country presented so many varieties of local character
as Italy ; but the inhabitants of Venice or Florence, Milan,
Naples, however else they might differ, were all on the
same spiritual level. They thought much about religion ;
they took the moral degradation of the Church and of the
clergy to heart ; they longed to see some improvement, if
it was only within their own city. They were clearsighted
enough to trace the mischief to the influence of the Eoman
Curia, and their belief in the hopelessness of reforming
the evil Court gives a settled despondency to their thought
which appears in most of the Chronicles. The external
side of religion was inextricably interwoven with their
city Hfe. The civic rulers had always something to do
with the churches, monasteries, and other ecclesiastical
foundations within their walls. They had no great interest
in doctrine ; what they wanted was a real improvement
in the moral living of clergy and of people. When an
Italian town was blessed with a good and pious Bishop, it
is touching to see how the whole population rallied round
him. '
When we turn to the outstanding men of the Italian
peninsula, whose opinions have been ' preserved in their
writings or correspondence, we find, to begin with, a great
variety of religious opinions whose common note is uncon-
strained hostility to the Church as it was then constituted.
The institution was a necessary evil, very important as a
factor in the game of politics, useless for the religious life.
This sentiment existed almost universally, both among
those who merely maintained a decorous relation towards
the existing ecclesiastical institutions, and among those who
really believed in Christianity, and acknowledged its power
504 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
over their mind and life. The papal Curia oppressed
them ; they were hopeless of its reformation, and yet there
was little hope of a revival of religion, with its social worship
and its sacraments, unless it was reformed. The feeling of
hopelessness is everywhere apparent ; the deepest spiritual
longings and experiences were to be treasured as sacred
secrets of the heart, and not to be spoken about. Yet the
work of Savonarola had not been entirely consumed in the
fire that burnt the martyr, and the earUer message of
Luther had found an echo in many Italian hearts.
§ 2. The Italian Roman Catholic Reformers.
There is no evidence of any widespread acceptance
of the whole of Luther's teaching, little appreciation of the
thought that the Church may be conceived as a fellowship
of God with man depending on the inscrutable purpose of
God and independent of all visible outward organisation,
none of the idea that the Visible Church Catholic exists
one and indivisible in the many forms in which men
combine to listen to the Word and to manifest their faith.
The Catholic Church was always to these pious Italians the
great historical and external institution with its hierarchy,
and its visible head in the Bishop of Eome. A reform of
the Church meant for them the reformation of that
institution. So long as this was denied them they could
always worship within the sanctuary of their own souls,
and they could enjoy the converse of likeminded friends.
So there came into existence coteries of pious Italians who
met to encourage each other, and to plan the restoration
of religion within the Church. Humanism had left its
mark on all of them, and their reunions were called
academies, after the Platonic academies of the earher
Eenaissance. The first had come into being before the
death of Leo. x. — a society of pious laymen and prelates,
who met in the little church of Santi Silvestro et Dorotea
in the Trastevere in Eome. The associates were more
than fifty in number, and they were all distinguished by
THE ITALIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC REFORMERS 505
their love of the New Learning, the strict purity of their
lives, and their devotion to the theology of St. Augustine.
The members were scattered after the sack of Eome (1527),
but this Oratory of Divine Love gave rise to many kindred
associations within which the original members found a
congenial society.
The most important found a home in Venice. Its
most prominent members were Gasparo Contarini, a
distinguished Senator, who afterwards was induced to
become a Cardinal. With him were Cardinal Caraffa,
already meditating upon taking another path, and Gregorio
Cortese, then Abbot of San Giorgio Maggiore. The
friends met in the beautiful garden of the convent. All
shades of opinion were represented in this circle, where
Humanists and Churchmen met to exchange views about
a reformation of the Church. To share in such intercourse,
Eeginald Pole willingly spent his days far from his native
England. Cardinal Fregoso, Archbishop of Salerno, gathered
a similar company around him at Genoa ; and Ghiberti,
Bishop of Verona, collected likeminded friends to talk
about the possibilities of reformation. Modena and
Padua had their Christian academies also. Nor must
the influence of well-born, cultured and pious ladies be
forgotten.
Eenee, Duchess of Ferrara and daughter of Louis xii. of
France, had accepted the Eeforniation in its entirety, and
had surrendered herself to the guidance of Calvin. She
corresponded with the great Frenchman and with Bullinger.
She sheltered persecuted Italian Protestants, or had them
safely conveyed to Switzerland.^ But she saw good wher-
ever it was to be found. Her letters, instinct with Christian
graciousness, remind the reader of those of her kinswoman
Marguerite of Navarre. She was full of sympathy witli
the circle of men and women who longed for a regeneration
of Italy ; and it is interesting to notice how the far more
highly gifted Vittoria Colonna leant on the woman whose
spiritual insight was deeper, and whose heart was purified
- * Herniinjard, CoiTes2Kyndance, etc. viii. 161.
506 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
by the trials which her decision in religious matters made
her pass through.
Caterina Cybo, a niece of Pope Clement, Princess of
Camerino, Eleonore Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, Julia
Gonzaga at Naples, and Vittoria Colonna at Viterbo and
at Eome, formed a circle of highly intellectual and deeply
pious women, who by their letters and intercourse inspired
men who were working for the regeneration of the Church
in Italy.
The network of their correspondence covered Italy
from Venice to Naples and from Genoa to Camerino, and
the letters exchanged between Marguerite of Navarre and
Vittoria Colonna extended the influence of the association
beyond the peninsula. The correspondents, men and
women, regarded themselves as a band of companions
pledged to each other to work together for the Keformation
of the Church and of society. It is not easy to describe
their aims, for they contented themselves for the most part
with vague aspirations ; and they all had their favourite likes
and dislikes. It is impossible to doubt their earnestness,
but it was of the high-bred placid kind. It had nothing
of the Spanish exaltation of Teresa, of the German
vehemence of Luther, of the French passion scarcely veiled
by the logical precision of Calvin. They all admired St.
Francis, but in a way out of sympathy with the common
people, for they looked on asceticism with a mild wonder,
and had no eagerness for that type of the imitation of
Christ. Vittoria Colonna indeed found the convent at
Viterbo a pleasant retreat for a few weeks at a time. A
sigh sometimes escaped her that perhaps the nuns were all
Marys who bad chosen the better part, but that was only
when she was weary with the perversities of the in-
comprehensible world. Their correspondence suggests an
academy of the earlier Italian Eenaissance, where the
theory of Ideas had given way to doctrines of Justification,
and the Epistles of St. Paul had taken the place of the
Dialogues of Plato. There is a touch of dilettantism in
their habits of thought, and a savour of the eighteenth
THE ITALIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC REFORMERS 507
century Salon in their intercourse. They longed to mediate
between contending parties in the religious strife which was
convulsing Europe beyond the Alps and might invade
Italy ; but they were unfit for the task. A true via
media can only be found by men who see both sides of the
controversy in the clear vision of thought, not by men wlio
perceive neither distinctly. Sadoleto, to take one example,
declared that he could see much to admire in the German
Keformation, but what he approved were only the external
portions which came from Humanism, not those elements
which made the movement a religious revival. He disliked
Luther, but had a great esteem for Bucer and Melanchthon.
Indeed, the Italian Cardinal may be called the Melanchthon
of Eomanism. Melanchthon, rooted in Protestantism, felt
compelled by his intellectual sympathy and humility to
beliave that there was some good in Eomanism and to try
to find it ; Sadoleto, rooted in Romanism, was impelled to
some sympathy with the Protestant theology. He had,
however, a fatal lack of precision of thought. One doctrine
tended to slide insensibly into another, into its opposite
even, under the touch of his analysis. The man who could
defend and commend auricular confession because it was
an example of Christian humility, and saint-worship
because it was a testimony to the immortality of the soul,
ran the risk of being regarded as a trifler by Protestants
and a traitor by Romanists. Such was his fate.
\ Contemporary with these offshoots from the Oratory of
Divine Love was a revival among some of the monastic
orders in Italy which had distinct connection with some
of the members of the associations above mentioned.
The most important for its influence on the religious
life of the people was the Order of the Capucins. It took
its rise from Matteo de Grassis, a man of no intellectual
powers, but endowed with more than the usual obstinacy
of the Italian peasant. He was" an Umbrian, like Francis
himself. He belonged to a district where traditions of the
great mediaeval revivalist had been handed down from
parents to children for generations, and one of these insisted
508 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
that St. Francis had worn a hood with its peak pointed
and not rounded, as the fashion among the monks then
was. He declared that St. Francis had appeared to him
in a vision, and had said that the brethren of the order
ought to obey his rules *' to the letter, to the letter, to the
letter." He for one resolved to obey. He threw away his
rounded hood and wore one with pointed peak. The
peasants refused to recognise the novelty, and drove him off
with stones ; his brethren argued with him, and belaboured
him with their fists ; but Matteo stuck to his pointed hood.
The shape was nothing, but the Founder's commands wero
everything ; Matteo would die before he would wear the
rounded thing which had never been hallowed by St,
Francis. The Princess Caterina Cybo took compassion on
the hunted man, and gave him an asylum within her little
principality of Camerino, where he wore his pointed capuze
in peace. He soon sank back into the obscurity from
which he had for a moment emerged. But new life was
stirring among the Franciscans. Many were dissatisfied
with the laxity of the order, and were longing for a
monastic Eeformation. All down the Middle Ages the
watchword of every monastic revival had been, " Back to
the Founder's rules." The pointed hood was a trifle, but it
was the symbol of a return to the rigid discipline of
Francis. Men heard that Camerino was an asylum for
Franciscans discontented with the laxity of the superiors
of the order, and gradually they flocked to the little
principality. Vittoria Colonna had long mourned over the
decadence of the genuine monastic life ; she encouraged
her friend the Princess Caterina to beseech her uncle the
Pope to permit the pointed hood, and gradually there
came into being a new fresh offshoot of the Franciscans,
called the Capucins, who revived the traditions of St.
Francis, and went preaching among the villages after the
fashion of his earlier followers. Francis had told his
disciples to beware of books when making their sermons ;
he had advised them to talk to the women as they washed,
Italian fashion, by the side of streams, to masons while
THE ITALIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC REFORMERS 509
they were hewing, to artisans at their work, to find out
what their religious difficulties were, what prevented them
becoming really Christians in their lives, and then to
discourse on the things they had heard. This old
Tranciscan preaching was restored by the Capucins, and
they did more than any others to bring the people of
Italy back to the discredited Church. They were accused
of heresy. What " reformation " of the Franciscans was
not ? They were called Lutherans ; and a good deal of
Luther's Evangelical teaching was unconsciously presented
in their sermons ; but they could always quote St. Francis
for what they said ; and who could gainsay what Francis
bad taught ?
I This monastic revival affected the commonalty ;
I another spoke to the educated classes. As early as 1504
an attempt had been made to reorganise the great
Benedictine order, and a number of Benedictine abbeys
had united to form a Congregation, which soon after its
institution took the name of the Benedictine Mother-
Cloister, Monte Cassino. Gregorio Cortese, one of the
members of the Oratory of Divine Love, entered into the
movement, and as Abbot of the Benedictine convent on
the Island of Lerina on the Eiviera, and afterwards in the
convent of San Giorgio Maggiore at Venice, led his monks
to show that their convents were the centres of learning
dedicated to the service of the Church. He interested
himself more especially in historical studies with k view of
maintainingr the historic traditions" of the Church, which
were beginning to be shaken by historical criticism, then
in its infancy.
, The improvement of the secular clergy was more
j important for the Church in Italy than any reforms of tlie
V monastic orders. An attempt to do this was begun by two
members of the Oratory of Divi:ne Love, Giovanni Pietro
Caraffa and Gaetano da Thiene. Their idea was that in
every diocese there ought to be a small band of men doing
the work of secular clergy but bound by monastic vows.
Their idea was taken from Augustine's practice of living
510 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
monastically with some of his clergy ; and fulfilled itself in
the order of the Theatines. The name was derived from
Theate (Chieti), the small See of which Caraffa was Bishop.
These picked clergy were to be to the Bishop what his
staff is to a general. The Theatines were not to be
numerous, still less to include the whole secular clergy of a
diocese ; but they were to incite by precept, and above all
by example, to a truly clerical life. The idea spread, and
similar associations arose all over Italy.^
Such were the preparations in Italy for the Counter-
Eeformation. There was no prospect of any attempt to set
the Church in order while Pope Clement vil lived. He
exhausted all his energies in preventing the summoning of
a General Council — a measure on which Charles v. was
growing more and more set as the only means of ending the
religious dispute in Germany.
] The accession of Paul m. (1534) seemed to inaugurate
la new era full of hopes for the advocates of reform at the
I centre of the Eoman Church. The new Pope made Gasparo
jContarini, Caraffa, Sadoleto, and Pole Cardinals. A Bull,
which remained unpublished, was read in the Consistory
(January 1536), sketching the possibility of reforming the
Curia. The Pope appointed a commission of nine members
to report upon the needful reforms, and the commission was
everywhere regarded as a sort of preliminary Council, a
body of men who were appointed to investigate and tabulate
a programme of necessary reforms to be laid before a
General Council. The Commissioners were Contarini,
Caraffa, Ghiberti, Sadoleto, Pole, Fregoso, all of whom had
been members of the Oratory of Divine Love, Aleander who
had been Nuncio at the Diet of Worms, and Tomaso Badia,
Master of the Sacred Palace. They met and drafted a
report which was presented to the Pope in 1537, and is
known as the Consilium delectorum cardinaliuin et alioruni
'prcelcdoriim de eme^idanda ecclesia. A more scathing
indictment of the condition of the Eoman Church could
^ The name went beyond the original foundation. The Jesuits were
Bometinies called Theatines both in Spain and in France.
THE ITALIAN ROxMAN CATHOLIC REFORMERS 511
scarcely be imagined, nor one which spoke more urgently
of the need of radical reformation. Its very thoroughness
was disconcerting. It revealed so many scandals connected
with the Papacy that it was resolved not to make it known.
But it had been printed as a private document ; a copy
somehow or other reached Germany ; it was at once
republished there, with comments showing how a papal
commission itself had justified all the German demands for
a reformation of the Church. At Kome the appearance of
reforming activity was maintained. Contarini, Caraffa,
Aleander, and Badia were appointed to investigate the
workings of those departments of the Curia which had most
to do with the abuses detailed in the report of the
Commission of Nine — the Chancery, the Datary, and the
Penitentiary, where reservations, dispensations, exemptions,
etc., -were given and registered. They presented their
report in the autumn of 1537. It was entitled Consilium
qiiattuor deledorum a Paulo III. super reformatione satictoi
Bomance Ecclesice. But Contarini evidently felt that the
Pope needed pressing. When the Commission of Nine had
been appointed, the Pope had summoned a General Council
to meet at Mantua in May 1537, in a Bull published on
May 29th, 1536, and had also published a Bull of
Reformation in September of that year. The Council
never met — the war between Charles v. and Francis i.
preventing. The Council was then summoned to meet at
Yicenza, but was again postponed. The Empero-r had no
wish for a General Council in Italy, and the Pope was
determined not to call one to meet in Germany. In these
circumstances Contarini published his Epistola de potestate
Pontificis in usu clavium, and his De potestate Pontificis in
Compositionihus}
* They are to be found in Bibliotheca Maxima Pontificia (Rome, 1790),
pp. \l^ff. The contents of the second letter are condensed in the phrase which
occurs near the end : "in legibus voluntas non debet regula esse" (p. 183).
The first letter urges the Pope to "make an end of the scandals caused by the
sale of disjiensations : *' Dispensator non potest ^:end ere id quod non suuni
est sed Domini. Neqiie etiam potest transgredi in dispensatione niandatuni
Domini. . . .. Expresse Cluistu;* in Evangclio praecipit : Gratis accepistis,
512 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
j Historians differ about the sincerity of Pope Paul in. in
the matter of reform, and there is room for two opinions.
His Italian policy was anti-Hapsburg, and the German
Eomanist Princes, at all events, had little belief in his
sincerity, and were seriously meditating on following the
example of Henry viiL Cardinal Morone, the Nuncio in
Germany, made no concealment of the difficulties attending
the position of the Komanist Church there, and urged
continually substantial reforms in Italy, and the necessity
of a General Council. Perhaps these energetic messages
stirred the Pope to renewed activity in Pome, and also to
the necessity of formulating a definite policy with regard
to the Lutherans beyond the Alps. In April (1540)
commissions were appointed to reform certain offices in the
Curia — the Kota, the Chancery, and the Penitentiary.
Consultations were held about how to deal with the state
of affairs in Germany. For the moment the ideas of the
more liberal-minded Italian Reformers were in the ascendant.
Charles had determined to find out whether it was not
possible to reunite the broken Church in Germany.
Conferences were to be held with the leading Lutheran
theologians. The Pope determined to reject the advice of
Paber, the Bishop of Vienna, and to refrain from pro-
nouncing judgment on a series of Lutheran propositions
sent to him for condemnation. Cardinal Contarini, whose
presence had been urgently required by the Emperor, was
permitted to cross the Alps to see, in conference with
distinguished Lutherans, whether some common terms of
agreement might be arrived at which would serve as
a programme to be set before the General Council,
which all were agreed must be summoned sometime
soon.
Gratis date " (p. 79). It closes with an urgent appeal : " Pater Sanctissime
ingressus es viam Christi, audacter age. . . . Deus omnipotens diriget
gressiis tuos, et tuorum omnium. Familiae tuae Protector erit, et super
omnia bona sua constituet te, ut ipse in Evangelio pollicetur servo fideli,
queui constituit super familiam suam. Dominus diu nobis servet Sanctitatem
tuam incolumem."
CARDINALS CONTARINI AND CARAFFA 513
§ 3. Cardinals Contarini and Caraffa.
This mission of Contarini's to Germany dates the
separation between two different ways of proposing to
deal with the Eeformation movement. The two methods
were embodied in two men, Cardinals Contarini and
Caraffa. They had both belonged to the Oratory of
Divine Love ; they were both zealous to see the Church
reformed in the sense of reviving its moral and spiritual
life ; they both longed to see the rent which had made
itself apparent repaired, and the Church again reunited.
They differed entirely about the means to be adopted to
bring about the desirable end. The differences originated
in the separate characters and training of the two
leaders.
Gasparo Contarini belonged to an ancient patrician
family of Venice, and spent the greater portion of his life in
the service of the Eepublic. He was looked on as the
ablest and most upright of its statesmen. He had drunk
deeply of the well of the New Learning, and yet can hardly
be called a Humanist. He had been a student at Padua,
and had there studied and learned to appreciate Scholastic
Theology. He had been trained as a Venetian statesman,
and clung to the political ideas of the mediaeval juris-
prudence. The whole round of meditieval thought encircled
and possessed him. Christendom was one great 'common-
wealth, and embodied three great imperialist ideas — a
world King, the Emperor ; a world priest, the Pope ; a
realm of sanctified science, the Scholastic Philosophy under
Theology, the Queen of the Sciences. He held these three
conceptions in a broad-minded and liberal way. There
was room under the Emperor for a community of Christian
States, under the Pope for a . brotherhood of national
Churches, under Scholastic for the New Learning and what
it brought to enrich the mind of mankind.
Erasmus had ridiculed Scholastic ; Contarini's friend
Cortese called it a farrago of words ; Luther had maintained
514 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
that it sounded hollow because at its centre was the vague
eternal Something of Pagan Philosophy and not the Father
who had revealed His heart in Jesus Christ ; but Contarini
saw the grandeur of the imposing edifice, believed in its
solidity, and would do nothing to destroy it. But this did
not prevent him sympathising strongly with Luther's
doctrine of Justification by Faith, nor from believing that
room might be found for it and other Protestant concep-
tions within the circle of mediaeval theological thought.
He had little sympathy with the enthusiasm which some
of his friends — Cardinal Pole for example — expressed for
Plato. Aristotle was for him the great master-builder of
human systematic thinking ; but the Aristotle he recognised
as the Master was not the sage revealed in the Greek text
or commentaries (although he studied both), but the
Aristotle who had cast his spell over Thomas Aquinas and
Albertus Magnus. He was firmly persuaded that the
Bishop of Eome was the Head of the Church, and as such
had his place in the political system of Christendom from
which he could not be removed without serious danger to
the whole existing framework of society ; but he looked on
the Pope as a constitutional monarch bound to observe in
his own person the ecclesiastical laws imposed by his
authority on the Christian world. Luther, he believed, had
recognised this in his earlier writings, and in this recognition
lay the possibilities of a readjustment which would bring
Christendom together again. On the other hand, Calvin's
Institutio filled him with mingled admiration and dread.
He recognised it to be the ablest book which the Protestant
movement had produced ; but the thought of a Christian
democracy with which it was permeated, the stress it laid
on the procession of the divine purpose down through the
ages, and the manner in which it taught the prevenience
of divine grace, were conceptions whose acceptance,
he thought, would be dangerous to the political governance
of mankind.
He dwelt with complacency on the thought that he
had never longed for ecclesiastical place or power. The
CARDINALS CONTARINI AND CARAFFA 515
Pope had persuaded him to permit himself to be made
Cardinal because the Holy See had need of his service.
He was conscious with a sort of proud humility that he
was generally esteemed the foremost Italian of hia genera-
tion, that enthusiastic friends spoke of his learning and
virtue as " more divine than human," He thought much
more of his position as a Venetian Senator and the trusted
counsellor of the Eepublic, whose constitution he believed
to be the embodiment of the best political principles of the
time, than he did of his place in the Eoman Court. " I
for my part, to tell the truth, do not think that the Eed
Hat is my highest honour," he was accustomed to say.
Such was the leader of the Hberal-minded Roman Catholics
of Italy, who was asked by the Pope and urgently entreated
by the Emperor to visit Germany and end the schism by
his persuasions.
Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, the intimate, the rival and the
supplanter of Contarini, belonged to one of the oldest
noble families of Naples. His house was intimately
allied to the Church, and for more than one hundred years
its members had been Archbishops of Naples, and several
had been made Cardinals. The boy was destined for the
Church. As a child he had longed to enter a cloister,
and had once set out to join the Dominicans. His family,
however, had other views for him. He was sent when
eighteen years of age to the papal court, and was soon
almost burdened with marks of distinction 'and with
offices. He had been highly educated while at Naples,
and had steeped himself in the New Learning. At tlie
Humanist Courts of Alexander vi. and Julius ii. he studied
Greek and Hebrew, and became an accomplished theologian
besides. In 1504, much against his will, he had been
consecrated Bishop of the small diocese of Chieti (Theate),
lying in the wild Abruzzi district, almost due east of
Eome, on the slopes from the highest spurs of the
Apennines to the Adriatic. He found his people
demoralised by constant feuds, and the priests worse
than their parishioners. Caraffa, determined to reduce his
516 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
unruly diocese to order, began with persuasion ; and finding
this of small avail, flogged people and clergy into some-
thing like decency by repeated spiritual censures and
rigidly enforced excommunications. His methods revealed
the man. His talents were of too high an order and
his family influence too great to permit him to linger
in his uncivilised diocese. He was sent as Nuncio to
England and thence to Spain. His visit to the latter
country made an indelible impression on his strong nature.
His earnest petitions for the independence of his native
Naples were contemptuously refused by the young King
Charles, and the fierce Neapolitan pursued the Emperor
with an undying hatred. But what was more important,
his stay in Spain imbued him with the ideas of the
Spanish Reformation. He was too much an Italian and
too strong a believer in the papal supremacy to adopt the
thought of secular interference in the affairs of the Church,
but with that exception the Spanish method of renovating
the Church took possession of him heart and soul. The
germs of fanaticism, hitherto sleeping within him, were
awakened to life, and never afterwards slumbered. He
sympathised with the projects of Adrian VL, and was a
power during his brief pontificate. During the reign of
Clement vii. he took little part in public affairs, but all
the attempts to put new life into the monastic orders
were assisted by him. He viewed with some suspicion
the attempt to conciliate the Germans ; and the results
of Contarini's dealing with the Protestants at Eegensburg
filled him with alarm.
Contarini's attempt to reunite the Church by recon-
ciliation was twenty years too late. It is doubtful whether
myone in Germany save the Emperor had much faith in
the uniting influences of a conference. Morone, who had
for years represented the Vatican at the Court of Ferdinand
of Austria, and who was perpetually urging the Pope to
summon a General Council, was afraid ever since Hagenau
that conferences benefited the Protestants more than the
Ptomanists. Contarini himself had said that what was
CARDINALS CONTARINI AND CARAFFA 517
needed to overcome the German movement was neither
conferences nor discussions about doctrine, but a Reforma-
tion in morals. The Curia regarded his mission as a
dangerous experiment. They tied his hands as firmly as
they could by his letter of instructions : He was to inform
the Emperor that no Legate, not even the Pope himself
until he had consulted the other nations, could modify
the doctrines of the Church for the sake of the" Germans;
he was to do his utmost to prevent the assembly of
a National Council for Germany. He heard from Paris
that the French Romanists believed that he was about to
betray the Church to the heretics. No one encouraged
him except his own circle of immediate friends. The
men with whom he was to work, Cardinal de Granvelle
and Dr. Eck, were suspicious of him and of his antecedents.
Nevei'theless his natural and confirmed optimism urged
him to the task.
The situation, looked at broadly and from the point
of view taken by a contemporary who had made himself
acquainted with the theology and constitution of the
mediaeval Church, was not so hopeless as it must seem
to us with the history of what followed to enlighten
us. The great mass of mediaeval doctrines lay uncodified.
They were not codified until the Council of Trent. The
extreme claims made by the supporters of a papal absolut-
ism— claims which may be briefly expressed by the sentence :
The Church Universal is condensed in the Roman Church,
and the Roman Church is represented by the Pope — which
had been used to crush the Lutheran- movement in its
earliest stages, were of recent origin. Curialism could be
represented to be almost as much opposed to the niedian-al
theory of the Church as anything that Luther had l)r.ouglit
forward. There was a real via media, if it could only
be discovered and defined. The commonplace opinions
of men who were sincerely attached to the mediaeval
conception of the Church, with its claims to catholicity,
with its doctrines, usages, ceremonies and hierarchy, could
scarcely be better represented than in the declaration
518 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
said to have been made by Charles V. to his sister Maria,
his governor in the Netherlands :
" It happened that on the Vigil of St. John the Baptist
the Emperor held a banquet in the garden. Now, when
Queen Maria asked him what he thought of doing with the
people and with the Confession (the Augsburg) that had
been presented, he made reply : ' Dear Sister, when I was
made chief of the Holy Eoman Empire, the great complaint
reached me that the people who profess this doctrine were
more wicked than the devil. But the Bishop of Seville gave
me the advice that I should not think of acting tyrannically,
but should ascertain whether the doctrine is at variance
with the articles of the Christian faith (the Apostles' Creed).
This advice pleased me, and so I find that the people are
not so devilish as had been represented ; nor is the subject
of dispute the Twelve Articles, but a matter lying outside
them, which I have therefore handed over to the scholars.
If their doctrine had been in conflict with the Twelve Articles
I should have been disposed to apply the edge of the sword.' "^
The Twelve Articles, as the Apostles' Creed was
called, always occupied a peculiar position in the Western
Church. They were believed to contain the ivhole of the
theologia 7'evelata. The great Schoolmen of the most
opposite parties (Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus
alike) were accustomed to deduce from the Apostles*
Creed fourteen propositions, seven on God and seven on
the Incarnation, and to declare that they contained the
sum of revealed theology ; everything else was natural
theology on which men might differ without being con-
sidered to have abandoned the essentials of the Christian
faith. Charles v. had been taught at first, probably by
Aleander's insistent reiterations, that Luther had denied
some portion of this revealed theology ; he had come to
learn that he had been wrongly informed ; therefore con-
ference and adjustment were possible.
; Men like Charles v. and Contarini could honestly
believe that so far as doctrine was concerned a compromise
might be effected.
^ Kawerau, Johamt Agricula (1881), p. 100.
THE CONFERENCE AT REGENSBURG 519
§ 4. The Conference at Regenshurg.
The Diet was opened at Eegensburg in February 1541.
The Emperor explained his position and intentions. He
declared that the most important duty before them was to
try to heal the division in religion wliich was separating
Germany into two opposing parties. The one duty of the
hour was to endeavour to come to a unanimous decision
on religious matters, and to bring about this he proposed
to name some peace-loving men who could confer together
upon the points in debate. Count Frederick of the
Palatinate, brother of the Elector, and Cardinal de Granvelle
were nominated presidents : three pronounced Protestants,
two pronounced Komanists, and one whose opinions were
doubtful, were the assessors ; Eck, Gropper, and Pflug
were .to support the Eomanist side, Melanchthon, Bucer,
and Pistorius were the speakers for the Protestants.
Perhaps the only name that could be objected to was that
of Eck ; it was impossible to think of him as a man of
peace. The Legate Contarini guided everything.
During preliminary conferences an understanding' was
come to on some practical questions which served to
preserve an appearance of unanimity. It was thought
that marriage might be permitted to the clergy and the
cup to the laity within Germany ; that the Pope might
be honoured as the Primate of the Church, provided it
was clearly understood that his position did not give him
the power of perpetual interference in the affairs of the
national Churches ; that the hierarchy might be maintained
if the episcopal jurisdiction were exercised conjointly by
a vicar appointed by the Bishop and a learned layman
appointed by the secular authority.
It was the business of the conference to discuss the
deeper thpological differences which were supposed to
separate ohe two parties. So in the opening meetings
the delegates began to consider those questions which
gathered round the thought of Justification.
It was agreed that there was no distinction between
520 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
the ordinances of grace and those of nature in the
original condition of man. This declaration involved the
denial of the distinction between the dona supernattiralia
and the dona naiuralia made so much of in Scholastic
Theology, and the basis of a great deal of its Pelagian
tendencies. It was expressly conceded by the Eomanist
theologians that man had lost his original freedom of
will by the Fall — a concession directly at variance with
the future declaration of the Council of Trent.^ The
statement agreed upon about the origin of sin was given
almost in the words of the Augsburg Confession, and
agrees with them. The doctrine of the tenacity of original
sin scarcely differs from a statement of Luther's which
had been condemned in the Bull Exurge Domine of Pope
Leo X.2 In the discussions and conclusions about this
first head of doctrine the conclusions of Protestant theology
had been amply vindicated.
There was more difficulty on the matter of Justification.
Two definitions suggested by the Eomanist theologians
and by Melanchthon were successively rejected, and one
brought forward, it is said by Contarini himself, was
accepted after some discussion. It was couched in
language which the Lutheran theologians had not been
accustomed to use. It embodied phrases which Pole,
Contarini, and other liberal Italian Eoman Catholics had
made their own. The Protestants of Germany, however,
saw nothing in it to contradict their cherished ideas upon
Justification, and they gladly accepted the definition. The
statement, repeated more than once, that grace is the free
gift of God and is not merited by our works, expressed
their deepest thought, and completely excluded the
^ The Regensburg article said : Creata lihertas iier hominis lapsum est
amissa ; the decree of Trent declared : Si quis liberum hominis arhitriuni
post Adce jtcccatwm amissum et extinctum esse dixerit^ anathema sit
(Denzinger, Enchiridion Syinholorum et Definitionum, etc., 9th ed. p. 192).
2 The Regensburg article says : Etsi post haptismum negare remanens
materiale peccatum, etc., the second heresy of Luther condemned in the Bull
is : In puero post baptismum negare remanens peccatitm, est Paulum et
Christum simul conculcare {ibid. p. 176).
THE CONFERENCE AT REGENSBURG 521
meritorious character of ecclesiastical good works. They
seemed rather pleased than otherwise that their thoughts
could be expressed in language suggested by Romanist
theologians.^ It appears that Eck, while consenting to
the definition, wished to avoid signing it, but was compelled
by Granvelle to fix his name to the document.^
The fact that the Romanist and Protestant members of
the conference could agree upon an article on Justification
caused great rejoicings among Contarini's friends in Italy.
Cardinal Pole was convinced that every obstacle in the
way of reunion had been removed, and the most ex-
travagant expectations were cherished.^ The Protestant
members of the conference were entirely satisfied with the
results so far as they had gone.
I The conference then turned to questions affecting the
organisation and worship of the Church.
Somewhat to their surprise, the Protestants found that
their opponents were willing to accept their general theory
of what was meant by the Church and what were its
^ Calvin, who was present at the conference, sums up the results so Jar in
a letter to Farel as follows : DeUdi nostri de jjeccato originali non difficulter
tramegerunt: sequuta est disjmtatio de lihero arbitrio, quce ex Augxistini
sententia composita fuit : nihil in utroque nobis decessit. De justificationc
acriores- fuerunt contentiones. Tandem conscripta est formula, quam
adhihitis certis corredionibus utrinque receperunt. Miraberis, scio,
adversarios tantum concessisse, quum legeris exemplar, ita ut postrema
manu corredum fuit, quod Uteris inclus-wm reperies. Retinucrunt enim
nostri doctrince verce summam : ut nihil illic comprehensmn sit, ^quod non
exstet in scriptis nostris : scio, desiderdbis clariorem explicationem, et in ea re
me tibi assentientem habebis. Verum, si reputes quibuscum- hominibus
ncgotittm nobis sit, agnosccs multum esse effecttim {Corpus Eeformatorum,
xxxix. 215). Calvin had been somewhat suspicious of Contarini at the
outset : Contarcnus sine sanguine subigcre nos cupit ; 2^roinde tentat omnes
vias conficiendi ex sua utilitate negotii citra arma {ibid, xxxix. 176).
2 In the dedication of the fourth portion of Melanchthon's Works to
Joachim ii. of Brandenburg, the editor Fencer says : Granvellus. . . .
Eccium, cum descriptce formulcc testimonium chirogra]^. addendum esset,
tergiversantem et astute renuentem facere id coegit. Eck with his great
coarse body, his loud harsh voice, his bullying habits, and his insincerity,
was universally disliked ; ista bestia, gehobeltcr Eck, he had been nicknamed
by Pirkheimer of Niirnberg.
=* Epistolarum Reginaldi Poli, S. Jl. E. Cardinalis (Brixiae, 1744-57), iii.
25-30.
522 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
distinguishing characteristics. The Christian Society was
defined without any reference to the Pope as its permanent
Head on earth. This provoked strong dissents from Eome
when the definition was known there. Differences emerged
when the power of the Church was discussed, and as there
was no prospect of agreement it was resolved for the
meanwhile to omit the article.^
The question of the Sacrament of the Holy Supper
evoked differences which were felt to be almost
insuperable. It was inevitable. For here the one funda-
mental divergence between the new Evangelical faith and
mediaeval religion came to practical expression. No-
thing could reconcile the Evangelical thought of a spiritual
priesthood of all believers with the belief in a mediating
priesthood who could give and could withhold God.
Doctrines might be stated in terms which hid this funda-
mental difference ; a definition of Justification by Faith
alone might be conceded to the Protestants ; but any
thought of a priestly miracle in the Sacrament of the Holy
Supper had to be repudiated by the one party and clung to
by the other.
At first things went smoothly enough ; it was conceded
that special ways of dispensing the Sacraments were matters
indifferent, but whenever the question of Transubstantiation
emerged, things came to a deadlock. It was perhaps
characteristic of Contarini's somewhat surface way of deal-
ing with the whole question at stake between the two
parties, that he never probed the deeper question. He
rested his plea for Transubstantiation on the ground that
an important article of faith which had been assented to
for so long must not be questioned.^ The Protestants held
a private conference, at which all the theologians present
were asked to give their opinions in turn. There Calvin
^ Calvin says : Ventum est delude ad ecclesiam : in definitione congru^hani
sententice : in potestate dissidere coeperwU. Quum nullo modo possent con-
ciliari, visum est articulum ilium omittere.
^ Nunquam Legatum assensurum, ut conspicua fidei decreta tot sceculii
culta in duhium addnccrentur.
THE CONFERENCE AT REGENSBURG 523
Bpoke, dwelling on the thought that Transubstantiation
implied adoration, which could never be conceded. His
firmness produced unanimity. Melanchthon drafted their
common opinion, which was given in writing to Granvelle,
who refused in strong language to accept it, and the
conference came to an end. The more difficult practical
subjects of the sacrificial character of the Mass and of
private Masses were not discussed.^
This conference at Kegensburg may almost be said to
be the parting of the ways. Up to 1525 the movement
under Luther had the appearance of a Reformation of the
whole Church in Germany. From 1525 to the date or
this conference there was always the expectation that the
Lutherans who had formed territorial Churches might yet
be included in a general Reformation of the whole German
Church. Joachim ii. of Brandenburg cherished the idea
long after 1541 ; and Charles v. still believed that w^hat
could not be effected by mutual compromise might be done
by a mediating creed imposed upon all by the authority of
^ The proceedings of the conference are given in full in the Acta
Ratishonpiisia. By far the most succinct account is to be found in Calvin's
letter to Farel of date 11th May 1541. He says of the discussion about the
sacraments : In sacramentis rixati sunt nonnihil : sed quum nostri snas illis
cceremonias, ut res tnedias, permitterent, usque ad coenam 2)'>'ogressi sunt.
Illic full insuperahilis scopulus. Ee2Judiata transuhstantialio, repositio,
circumgestatio, et reliqui superstitiosi cultus. Ilcec .adversariis nequaquam
tolerabilia. Collega meus {Bucer), qui totus ardet studio concordioe, frowre
et indiqnari, quod inte'inpestive fuissent motce eiusmodi qucestiones, Philippvs
{Melanchthon) in adversam partem magis tcnderc, ut rebus exulceratis omncm
■pacificationis spem prcecideret. Nostri hdbita consultatione, nos convocarunt.
Jussi sumus omnes ordine dicere sententias : fuit una omnimn vox, tran-
suhstantialionem rem esse Jictitiam, repositioneni superstitiosam, idololatricara
esse adorationem, vel saltern pericnlosam, quum fiat sine verbo Dei. Me
quoque exjycniere latinc opiortuit quid sentirem, Tametsi neminem ex aliis
intellexeram (because they spoke in German), libere tamen sine timore
offensionis, illam localem prcesentiam damnavi: adoratioiievi asserui mihi
esse intolerabilem. Crede mihi, in eiusmQdi actionibus opics est fortibus
animis, qui alios eonfirment. . . . Scriptiim deinde a Philippo composUum,
quod ubi Granvellano oblalum est, asperis verbis repudiavit, quod illi trcs
delecti ad nos retulissent. Hoc quumfianl in ipso limine, cogita quantum adhve
supersit difficultatis, in missa privata, sacri/icio, in communicatione calicis.
Quid si ad aper/am prcesentice confessionem, veniretur ? quanii tumultus differ-
vesccrenl? {Corpus Rrformaiorum, xxxix. 215, 216).
524 ITALIAN LIBERAL ROMAN CATHOLICS
the Emperor. But compromise failed at Katisbon, and
there was no further hope of its succeeding.
The decisive character of the Eegensburg conference
was seen in Italy almost at once. Its failure involved the
(destruction of the party of Italian Romanists who hoped to
end the religious strife by a compromise. When Contarini
k-eturned to Italy he found that his influence was gone.
He was rewarded with the Government of Bologna, which
removed him from the centre of things. He died soon
after (Aug. 24th, 1542), leaving none behind him to fill
his place. Ghiberti survived him only sixteen months.
Caraffa had become more and more alienated from his
early friends. Sadoleto, Pole, and Morone remained, all of
them men of intellect, but lacking the qualities which fit
men to be leadei'S in trying times. Pole lived to make
atonement for his liberalism by hounding on the perse-
cutions in England, and Morone by becoming the champion
of ultramontanism at the close of the Council of Trent.
I The conception of a Catholic Reformation disappeared ; the
idea of a Counter-Reformation took its place.
CHAPTER IV.
IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS.^
§ 1. ^^ Manresa.
The little mountainous province of Guipuzcoa, lying at the
corner of the Bay of Biscay, bordering on France, was the
district of Spain which produced one of the greatest of her
sons, Inigo de Eecalde de Loyola, the founder of the Society
of Jesus. The tower which was the family seat still stands,
rough and windowless as a Scottish border keep, adorned
with one ornament only, a stone above the doorway, on
which are carved the arms of the family — two wolves in
quest of prey. Guipuzcoa had never been conquered by
the Moors, and its nobles, poor in their barren highlands,
boasted that the bluest Gothic blood ran in their veins.
The Eecaldes belonged to the very oldest nobility of the
district, and possessed the highly valued privilege of the
^ Sources : Monumenta historica Societatis Jesit, nunc primum edita a
Patnbus ejusdem Societatis (Madrid, 1894, etc.) ; Cartas de San Ignacio de
Loyola, fundador de la Compania de Jesus (Madrid, 1874, etc.); G. P
MafiTei, De vita ct moi'ibus Ignatii Loyolce^ qui Socictatem Jcsu fundavit
(Cologne, 1585) ; Ribadeneyra, Vida del P. Ignacio de Loyola (Madrid,
1594) ; Orlandino, Historia Societatis Jesu, pars j^fima sive Ignatiits, etc.
(Rome, 1615) ; Braunsberger, Petri Canisii Epistolce ct Acta (Freiburg i.
B. 1896) ; Decreta, etc., Societatis Jesu (Avignon, 1827) ; Constitutiones
Societatis Jesu (Rome, 1558).
Later Books : Huber, Der Jcsuit-Orden nach seineY Verfassung und
Doctrin, Wirksamkeit und Geschichte characlerisirt {^er\m, 1873) ; Gothein,
Ignatius ro7i Loyola und die Gcgcnreformation (Halle, 1895); Sy mends,
Renaissance in Italy, The Catholic Eeaction (London, 1886) ; Cretinau-Joly,
Illstoirc religieuse 2Jolitiquc et litteraire dc la Compagnic de Jisus (Paris,
1845-46) ; Maurice Martel, Ignacc de Loyola, Essai dc psychologic religieuse
(Paris).
525
526 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
right of personal summons to the coronation of the Kings
of Leon. Their younger sons were welcomed at Court as
pages, and then as soldiers ; and the young Inigo was a
page at the Court of Ferdinand. He was well educated
for a Spanish noble ; could read and write ; composed
ballads ; and could illuminate manuscripts with miniatures.
Most of his spare time was employed in reading those
romances of chivalry then very popular. When older he
became a soldier like his elder brothers.
In 1521, when twenty-eight years of age (b. 1493),
he was the youngest officer in command of the garrison of
Pampeluna, ordered to withstand a combined force of in-
vading French troops and some revolting Spaniards. The
enemy appeared before the place in such overwhelming
numbers that all but the youngest officer wished to
surrender without a struggle. Inigo's eloquence persuaded
the garrison to attempt a desperate defence. No priest
was among the soldiers ; the Spaniards, according to their
custom, confessed each other, and were ready to die at
their posts. A bullet struck the young officer as he stood
in the breach encouraging his men. His fall gave the
victory to the besiegers.
The conspicuous bravery of Inigo had won the respect
of his enemies. They extricated him from the heap of
dead under which he was buried, and conveyed him to the
old family castle. There his shattered leg was so badly
set as to unfit him for a soldier's career. He had it twice
broken and twice reset. The prolonged torture was useless ;
he had to believe that he would never fight on horseback
again. The dream of taking a man's part in the conquests
which all Spaniards of that age believed lay before their
country, had to be abandoned. His body was a useless log.
But Inigo was a noble of the Basque provinces, and
possessed, in a superlative degree it was to be discovered,
the characteristics of his race — at once taciturn and
enthusiastic, wildly imaginative, and sternly practical. He
has himself recorded that, as soon as he was convinced that
he could never become a distinguished soldier, he asked
AT MANRESA 527
himself whether he might not become a famous saint like
Dominic or Francis, and that the question arose from no
spiritual promptings, but simply from the determination to
win fame before his death. As he lay bedridden, thinkincr
much and dreaming more, it suddenly occurred to him
that no one could become a saint unless he lived very near
God, and that his life had not been of such a kind. He at
once resolved that he would change ; he would feed on
herbs like a holy hermit ; he would go to Jerusalem as a
devout pilgrim. This vow, he tells us, was the earliest
conscious movement of his soul towards God. His reward
came soon in the shape of his first revelation. The blessed
Virgin, with the Child Jesus in her arms, appeared to him
in a dream. He awoke, hustled out of bed, dragged him-
self to the small window of his turret-room, and looked
out. The earth was dark, an obscure mingling of black
shadows ; the heavens were a great vault of deepest blue
strewn with innumerable stars. The sight was a parable
and an inspiration. " How dull earth is," he cried, " how
glorious heaven ! " He felt that he must do something to
get nearer God. He must be alone in some holy place to
think things out with his own soul. His brother's servants
hoisted the maimed body of the once brilHant soldier on
an ass, one foot in a boot, the wounded leg still swathed
in bandages and its foot in a large soft slipper, and Inigo
left the old castle determined to live a • hermit's life on
Montserrat, the holy hill of Aragon.
There in the church of Our Lady of Montserrat lie
resolved to dedicate himself to her service with all the
ceremonies prescribed in that masterbook of mediaeval
chivalry, Amadis of Gaul. He hung his arms on her
altar, and throughout the long night, standing or kneehng,
he kept his watch, consecrating his knightly, service to the
Blessed Virgin. At daybreak he donned an anchorite's
dress, gave his knightly robes to the first beggar he met,
and, mounted on his ass, betook himself to the Dominican
convent of Manresa, no longer Inigo Eecalde de Loyola,
but simply Ignatiut.
528 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
At Manresa he practised the strictest asceticism, hoping
to become in heart and soul fitted for the saint hfe he
wished to live. Then began a time of unexpected, sore
and prolonged spiritual conflict, not unlike what Luther
experienced in the Erfurt convent. Who was he and
what had been his past life that he should presumptuously
think that God would ever accept him and number him
among His saints ? He made unwearied use of all the
mediaeval means of grace; he exhausted the resources of
the confessional ; he consulted one spiritual guide after
another without experiencing any relief to the doubts
which were gnawing at his soul. The whole machinery of
the Church helped him as little as it had Luther : it conld
not give peace of conscience. He has placed on record
that the only real help he received during this prolonged
period of mental agony came from an old woman. Con-
fession, instead of soothing him, rather plunged him into a
sea of intolerable doubt. To make his penitence thorough,
to know himself as he really was, he wrote out his
confession that he might see his sins staring at him from
the written page. He fasted till his life was in danger ;
he prayed seven times and scourged himself thrice daily,
but found no peace. He tells us that he often shrieked
aloud to God, crying that He must Himself help him, for
no creature could bring him comfort. No task would be
too great for him, he exclaimed, if he could only see God.
" Show me, O Lord, where I can find Thee ; I will follow
like a dog, if I can only learn the way of salvation." His
anguish prompted him to suicide. More than once, he
says, he opened his window with the intention of casting
himself down headlong and ending his life then and there ;
but the fear of his sins and their consequences restrained
him. He had read of a saint who had vowed to fast until
he had been vouchsafed the Beatific Vision, so he com-
municated at the altar and fasted for a whole week ; but
all ended in vanity and vexation of spirit.
Then, with the sudden certainty of a revelation, he
resolved to throw himself on the mercy of .God, whose long-
AT MANRESA 529
suffering pity would pardon his sins. This was the crisis.
Peace came at last, and his new spiritual life began. He
thought no longer about his past ; he no longer mentioned
former sins in his confessions ; the certainty of pardon had
begun a new life within him ; he could start afresh. It is
impossible to read his statements without being struck with
the similarity between the spiritual experience of Ignatius
and what Luther calls Justification by Faith ; the words
used by the two great religious leaders were different, but
the experience of pardon won by throwing one's self upon
the mercy of God was the same.
This new spiritual life was, as in Luther's case, one of
overflowing gladness. Meditation and introspection, once
a source of anguish, became the spring of overpowering joy.
Ignatius felt that he was making progress. " God," he
says,' " dealt with me as a teacher with a scholar ; I cannot
doubt that He had always been with me." Many
historical critics from Eanke downwards have been struck
with the likeness of the experience gone through by Luther
and Ignatius. One great contrast manifested itself at
once. The humble-minded and quiet German, when the
new life awoke in him, set himself unostentatiously to do
the common tasks which daily life brought ; the fiery and
ambitious Spaniard at once tried to conquer all mysteries,
to take them by assault as if they were a beleaguered
fortress.
He had his visions as before, but they were no longer
temptations of Satan, the source of doubt and torture. He
believed that he could actually see with bodily eyes divine
mysteries which the intelligence could not comprehend.
After lengthened prayer, every faculty concentrated in one
prolonged gaze, he felt assured that he could see the
mystery of Transubstantiation actually taking place. At
the supreme moment he saw Christ in the form of a white
ray pass into the consecrated bread and transform it into
the Divine Victim (Host). He declared that in moods of
exaltation the most impenetrable mysteries of theology, the
Incarnation of our Lord, the Holy Trinity, the personality
o4
530 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
of Satan, were translated into visible symbols wbich made
them plainly understood. These visions so fascinated him,
that he began to write them down in simple fashion for
his own satisfaction and edification.
In all this the student of the religious life of Spain
during the sixteenth century will recognise the mystical
devotion which was then characteristic of the people of the
Peninsula. The Spanish character, whether we study it in
the romances of chivalry which the land produced, or in
the writing of her religious guides, was impregnated by
enthusiasm. It was passionate, exalted, entirely penetrated
and possessed by the emotion which for the time dominated
it. In no country were the national and religious senti-
ment so thoroughly fused and united. The long wars
with the Moors, and their successful issue in the conquest
of Grenada, had made religion and patriotism one and the
same thing. Priests invariably accompanied troops on the
march, and went into battle with them. St. James of
Compostella was believed to traverse the country to bring
continual succour to the soldiers who charged the Moors
invoking his name. A victory was celebrated by a solemn
procession in honour of God and of the Virgin, who had
delivered the enemy into the hands of the faithful. This
intensity of the Spanish character, this temperament dis-
tinguished by force rather than moderation, easily gave birth
to superstition and burning devotion, and both furnished
a fruitful soil for the extravagances of Mysticism, which
affected every class in society. Statesmen like Ximenes,
no less than the common people, were influenced by the
exhortations or predictions of the Beatce, — women who had
devoted themselves to a religious life without formally
entering into a convent, — and changed their policy in conse-
quence. It was universally believed that such devotees,
men and women, could be illuminated divinely, and could
attain to a state of familiar intercourse with God, if not to
an actual union with Him, by giving themselves to prayer,
by abstinence from all worldly thoughts and actions, and
by practising the most rigid asceticism. It was held that
AT MANRESA 531
those who had attained to this state of mystical union
received in dreams, trances, and ecstasies, visions of the
divine mysteries.
The heads of the Spanish Inquisition viewed this
Mysticism, so characteristic of the Peninsula, with grave
anxiety. The thought that ardent believers could by any
personal process attain direct intercourse, even union with
God, apart from the ordinary machinery of the Church, cut
at the roots of the mediaeval penitential system, which
always presupposed that a priestly mediation was required.
If God can be met in the silence of the believer's soul,
where is the need for the priest, who, according to
mediaeval ideas, must always stand between the penitent
and God, and by his action take the hand of faith and lay
it in the hand of the divine omnipotence ? Other dangers
appeared. The Mystic professed to draw his knowledge
of divine things directly from the same source as the
Church, and his revelations had the same authority. It is
true that most of the Spanish Mystics, like St. Teresa, had
humility enough to place themselves under ecclesiastical
direction, but this was not the case with all. Some
prophets and prophetesses declared themselves to be
independent, and these illuminuti, as they were called,
spread disaffection and heresy. Hence the attitude of the
Inquisition towards Mystics of all kinds was one of
suspicious watchfulness. St. Teresa, St. Juan de la Cruz,
Ignatius himself, were all objects of distrust, and did not
win ecclesiastical approbation until after long series of
tribulations.
It is necessary to insist on the fact that Ignatius had
a deeply rooted connection with the Spanish Mystics.
His visions, his methods, the Spiritual Exercises themselves,
cannot be understood apart from their intimate relations
to that Mysticism which was characteristic of the religion
of his land and of his age.
Ignatius was no ordinary Mystic; however. What
seemed the whole or the end to Teresa or Osuna was to
him only a part, or the means to something better. AVhile
532 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
he received and rejoiced in the visions vouchsafed to him,
he practised the keenest introspection. He observed and
analysed the moods and states of mind in which the visions
came most readily or the reverse, and made a note of them
all. He noted the postures and gestures of the body which
helped or hindered the reception of visions or profitable
meditation on what had been revealed. He saw that he
could reproduce or at least facilitate the return of his
visions by training and mastering his mind and body, and
by subjecting them to a spiritual drill which might be
compared with the exercises used to train a soldier in
the art of war. Out of these visions, introspections,
comparisons, experiments experienced in solitude at
Manresa, came by long process of gradual growth and
elaboration the famous Spiritual Exercises, which may be
called the soul of the Counter-Eeformation, as Luther's
book on The Liberty of the Christian Man contains the
essence of Protestantism.
Ignatius spent nearly a year at Manresa. He had
accomplished his object — to find himself at peace with
God. It refnained to fulfil his vow of pilgrimage. He
laid aside his hermit's ' garb, and with it his ascetic
practices ; but he beheved it to be his duty to renounce
all property and live absolutely poor. He left all the
money he possessed upon a bench and walked to Barce-
lona, supporting himself by begging. There he was given
a passage to Venice, and thence he sailed for the Holy
Land. His enthusiasm, and above all his project for
beginning a mission among the Turks, alarmed the chief of
the Franciscans in Jerusalem, who insisted on shipping
him back to Italy. He reached Barcelona determined
to pursue such studies as would enable him to know
theology. He had never learned Latin, the gateway to all
theological learning, and the man of thirty entered school,
and seated himself on the bench with boys. Thence he went
to Alcala and to Salamanca, and attended classes in these
towns. Before he had quitted Manresa he had begun to
speak to others about his visions, and to persuade them to
IGNATIUS AT PARIS 533
submit themselves to the spiritual drill of his Exercises.
Some ladies in Barcelona had become his devoted disciples.
At Alcala and Salamanca he had tried to make converts
to his system. The ecclesiastical authorities of the districts,
fearing that this was a new kind of dangerous Mysticism,
seized him, and he was twice incarcerated in the episcopal
Inquisition. It would probably have fared ill .with him
had it not been for the intercession of some of the
distinguished ladies who had been his disciples. His
imprisonment in both cases was short, but he was for-
bidden to discriminate between mortal and venial sins (a
thing essential if he acted as a spiritual director) until
he had studied theology for four years.
§ 2. Ignatius at Paris,
With prompt military obedience Ignatius decided to
study at Paris. He reached the city in the beginning of
1528, driving an ass laden with his books and clothes. He
went naturally to the College Montaigu, which under its
Principal, Noel Beda, was the most orthodox in Paris ; but
with his well known determination to see and judge
everything for himself, he soon afterwards obtained
leave to reside in the College Ste. Barbe, one of the
most liberal, in which George Buchanan was then a
Eegent.^ -
1 " The residence of Ignatius Loyola in the College of Ste. Barbe is
connected with an incident which is at once illustrative of his own spirit
and of the manners of the time. He had come to Paris for the purpose of
study ; but he could not resist the temptation to make converts to his
great mission. Among these converts was a Spaniard named Amador, a
promising student in philosophy in Ste. Barbe. This Amador, Loyola had
transformed from a diligent student into a visionary as wild as himself,
to the intense indignation of the University, and especially of his own
countrymen. About the same time Loyol* craved permission to attend Ste.
Barbe as a student of philosophy. .He was admitted on the express condition
that he should make no attempt on tlie consciences of his fellows. Loyola
kept his word as far as Amador was concerned, ^but he could not resist
the temptation to communicate his visions to others. The Regent thrice
warned him of what would be the result, and at length made his complaint
534 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
His sojourn in Paris could not fail to make a deep
impression oii^tBe~^iTddle-aged Spaniard, consumed with
zeal to maintain in its minutest details the old religion,
and to destroy heresy and disobedience. Two passions
possessed him, both eminently Spanish. He could say
with St. Teresa that he suffered so much to see the
Lutherans, whose baptism had rendered them members of
the Church, lose themselves unhappily, that had he several
lives he would willingly give them to dehver only one of
them from the horrible torments which awaited them ;
but he also believed that it was for God a point of honour
to avenge Himself on those who despised His word, and
that it belonged to all the faithful to be instruments of the
vengeance of the Almighty.
His keen practical nature grasped the religious situa-
tion in Paris (City and University), and suggested his
lifework. He saw the strength of the Eoman Catholic
democracy face to face with the Eeformation, and to
what power it might grow if it were only organised and
subjected to a more than military discipline. Ignatius
was in Paris during the years when partisan feelings
ran riot.
Francis L was by taste and training a man of the
Kenaissance. It pleased him to be called and to imagine
himself to be the patron of men of letters. He was as
devoted as his selfish, sensual nature permitted him to be,
to his sister Marguerite d'Angouleme, and for her sake
to the Principal (Jacques de Gouvea). Gouv^a was furious, and gave
orders that next day Loyola should be subjected to the most disgraceful
punishment the College could inflict. This running of the gauntlet, known
as la salle, was administered in the following manner. After dinner, when
all the scholars were present, the masters, each with his ferule in his hand,
ranged themselves in a double row. The delinquent, stripped to the waist,
Avas then made to pass between them, receiving a blow across the shoulders
from each. This was the ignominious punishment to which Loyola,
then in his fortieth year, as a member of the College, was bound to submit.
The tidings of what was in store for him reached his ears, and in a private
interview he contrived to turn away Gouv^a's wrath. . . . This was in 1529,
the year of Buchanan's entrance into Stc Barbe" (P. Hume Brown, George
Buchanan; Humanist and Reformer, Edinburgh, 1890, pp. 62/.).
IGNATIUS AT PARIS 535
countenanced such Eeformers as Lefevre and the " group of
Meaux/' He had a grudge against the Sorbonne and the
Farlement of Paris for their attempts to baffle the Concordat
of 1516; while he recognised the power which these
two formidable associations possessed. He was an anti-
Sorbonnist, who feared the Sorbonne (the great theological
faculty of the University of Paris), and could not help
displaying his dread. He had long dreamed of insti-
tuting a College de France, a free association of learned
teachers, men who could introduce the New Learning and
form a counterpoise to the Sorbonne which dominated the
University. The project took many forms, and never
came to full fruition until long after the days of Francis;
but the beginnings were sufficient to encourage Reformers
and to irritate to fury the supporters of the Sorbonne.
The theological faculty of the University was then ruled
by Noel Beda, a man of no great intellectual capacity,
who hated everything which seemed to menace medisevalism.
Beda, by his dogged courage, by his unflinching determina-
tion, by his intense conviction that he was in the right,
was able to wage a pitiless warfare against the New
Learning and every appearance of religious reform. He
was -able to thwart the King repeatedly, and more than
once to attack him through Marguerite, his sister. His
whole attitude and activity made him a forerunner of the
Romanist League of two generations later, and, like
the Leaguers, he based his power on organising the
Romanist fanaticism lying in the populace of Paris and
among the students of the Sorbonne. All this Loyola
saw under his eyes during his stay in Paris. He heard
the students of the Sorbonne singing their ferocious
song :
" Prions tons le Roi de gloire
Qu'il confonde.ces chiens mauldicts,
Afin qu'il n'eii soit plus memoire,
Noil plus que de vielz os pourris.
Au feu, au feu ! c'est leur repfere
Fais-en justice! Dieu I'a perinya";
536 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
and the defiant answer:
" La Sorbonne, la bigotte,
La Sorbonne se taira !
Son grand hoste, TAristote,
De la bande s'ostera !
Et son escot, quoi qu'il coste,
Jamais ne la sotilera !
La Sorbonne, la bigotte,
La Sorbonne se taira 1
, . . . •
La saincte Escriture toute
Purement se preschera,
Et toute doctrine sotte
Des hommes on oublira !
La Sorbonne, la bigotte,
La Sorbonne se taira ! " ^
Amidst this seething crowd of warring students and
teachers, Ignatius went, silent, watchful, observing every-
thing. He cared little for theological speculation, being a
true and typical Spaniard. The doctrines of the mediaeval
theology were simply military commands to his disciplined
mind ; things to be submitted to whether understood or
not. Heresy was mutiny in the ranks. He had a
marvellous natural capacity for penetrating the souls of
others, and had cultivated and strengthened it by his
habits of daily introspection and of writing down whatever,
good or bad, passed through his own soul. It is told of
him that in company he talked little, but quietly noted
what others said, and that he had infinite genius for
observing and storing details.^ He sought to learn the
conditions of life and thought outside Paris and France,
and made journeys to the Low Countries and to England,
saying little, thinking much, observing more. All the
time he was winning the confidence of fellow-students, and
1 Bulletin de la Soci4t4 de VHistoire de Protestantisme Frangais, xii. 129.
- One of Loyola's earliest biographers, Ribadeueyra, dwells on the eager-
ness with which Ignatius welcomed the slightest details of the life of his
disciples in the Indies, and how he one day said : "I would assuredly like
lo know, if it were possible, how many fleas bit them each night."
IGNATIUS AT PARIS 537
taking infinite pains to do so — weighing and testing their
character and gifts. He played bilHards with some, paid
the college expenses of others, and was slowly, patiently
making his selection of the young men whom he thought
fit to be the confidants of his plans for the regeneration of
Christendom, and to be associates with him in the discipline
which the Exercises gave to his own soul.^
He finally chose a little band of nine disciples — Peter
Faber, Diego Lainez, Francis Xavier, Alonzo Salmeron,
Nicholas Boabdilla, Simon Eodriguez, Paul Broet, Claude
Jay, and Jean Codure. Codure died early. Faber, the
first selected, was a Savoyard, the son of a poor peasant,
with the unbending will and fervent spiritual imagina-
tion of a highlander. No one of the band was more
devoted to his leader. Francis Xavier belonged, like
Loyola himself, to an ancient Basque family ; none was
harder to win than this proud young Spaniard. Lainez
and Salmeron were Castilians, who had been fellow-
students with Ignatius at Alcala. Lainez had always
been a prodigy of learning, " a young man with the brain
of an ancient sage." He, too, had been hard to win, for
his was not a nature to kindle easily ; but once subdued
he was the most important member of the band. Salmeron,
his early companion, was as impetuous and fiery as Lainez
was cool and logical. He was the eloquent preacher of
the company. Boabdilla, also a Spaniard, was a man of
restless energy, who needed the strictest discipline to make
him keep touch with his brothers. Eodriguez, a Portuguese,
and Jay, from Geneva, were young men of insinuating
inahhers, and were the destined diplomatists of the little
company. Broet, a phlegmatic Netherlander among these
fiery southerners, endeared himself to all of them by his
sweet purity of soul.
Such were the men whom Ignatius gathered together
on the Feast of the Ascension of Mary in 1534 in the
^ Loyola had long abandoned the vow of poverty ; his faithful disciples,
the circle of Barcelona ladies, sent hira supplies of money, and he received
sums from Spanish merchants in France and the Low Countries.
538 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
Church of St. Mary of Montmartre, then outside the walls
of Paris. There they vowed that if no insuperable
difficulty prevented, they would go together to Palestine
to work for the good of mankind. If this became im-
possible, they would ask the Pope to absolve them from
their vow and betake themselves to whatever work for the
good of souls His Holiness directed them to do. No Order
was founded ; no vows of poverty and obedience were taken ;
the young men were a band of students who looked on
each other as brothers, and who promised to leave family
and friends, and, " without superfluous money," work together
for a regeneration of the Church. Faber, already in priest's
orders, celebrated Mass ; the company dined together at
St. Denys, Such was the quiet beginning of what grew
to be the Society of Jesus.
The companions parted for a season to meet again at
Venice.
I 3. The Spiritual Exercises.
All the nine associates had submitted themselves to
the spiritual guidance, of Ignatius, and had all been sub-
jected to the training contained in the Exercitia Spiritualia.
It is probable that this manual of military drill for the
soul had not been perfected at the date of the meeting at
Montmartre (1534), for we know that Loyola worked at
it from 1522 on to 1548^ when it was approved by Pope
Paul III. ; but it may be well at this stage to give some
account of this marvellous book, which was destined to
have such important results for the Counter-Eeformation.^
The thought that the spiritual senses and faculties
might be strengthened and stimulated by the continuous
repetition &i a prescribed course of prayer and meditation,
^ The Exercitia Spiritualia S. P. Ignatii Loyolce^ Fundatoris Ordinis
Societatis Jesu, and their indispensable companion the Directorium in
Exercitia Spirii^ialia B. P. N, Ignatii, are to be found in vol. iv. of the
Insti. Soc. Jesu. The editions used here are, of the Exercises, that of
Antwerp, 1676, and of the Directory, that of Rome, 1616.
THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES 539
was not a new one. The German Mystics of the fourteenth
century, to name no others, had put their converts through
such a discipline, and the practice was not unusual among
the Dominicans. It is most likely that a book of this kind,
the Excrcitatorio dela vida spirital of Garcia de Cisneros,
Abbot of the Monastery of Montserrat (1500), had been
studied by Ignatius while he was at Manresa. But tliis
detracts nothing from the striking and unique originality
of the Excrcitia Spirititalia ; they stand alone in plan,
contents, and intended result.^ They were the outcome of
Loyola's protracted spiritual struggles, and of his cool intro-
spection of his own soul during these months of doubt and
anguish. Their evident intention is to guide the soul
through the long series of experiences which Loyola had
endured unaided, and to lead it to the peace which he had
found.'
It is universally admitted that Ignatius had always
before him the conception of military drill. He wished to
discipline the soul as the drill-sergeant moulds the body.
The Exercises are not closet-rules for solitary behevers
seeking to rise to communion with God by a ladder of
meditation. A guide was indispensable, the Master of. the
Exercises, who had himself conquered all the intricacies of
the method, and who, besides, must have as intimate a
knowledge as it was possible to acquire of the details of
the spiritual strength and weakness of his pupil. It Avas
the easier to have this knowledge, as the disciple tnust be
* A careful study of the Exercises, of the Directory, of Loyola's corresixjiid-
encc, and of his sayings recorded by early and contemporary biograpliers,
lias convinced me that the book was mainly constructed out of the abundant
notes which Loyola took of his own inward experiences at Manresa, and
that the only book he used in comi)iling it was the De Imitatioiic Christi
of Thomas a Kempis — a book which Ignatius believed to have been written
by Gerson. AVe know otherwise how higlily Ignatius prized the De Imita-
tione. When he visited the Abbey of Monte Casino he took with him as
many copies as there were monks in the liionastery ; it was the one volume
which he kept on the small table at his bedside ; and it was tlie only book
which the neophyte was permitted to read during the first week of the
Exercises : " si tanien instructori videbitur, posset in prima hebdomada Icgere
librum Gersonis de Imitatione Christi " {Directory, iii. 2).
540 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESDS
more than half won before he is invited to pass through
the drill. He must have submitted to one of the fathers
in confession ; he must be made to understand the absolute
necessity of abandoning himself to the exercises with his
whole heart and soul ; he must promise absolute submission
to the orders of the director; he must by frequent con-
fession reveal the recesses of his soul, and describe the
most trivial thoughts which flit through it ; above all, he
must enter on his prolonged task in a state of the liveliest
expectation of the benefits to be derived from his faithful
performance of the prescribed exercises.^ A large, though
strictly limited, discretion is permitted to the Master of the
Exercises in the details of the training he insists upon.
The course of drill extends over four weeks ^ (twenty-
five days). It includes prolonged and detailed meditations
on four great subjects : — sin and conscience ; the earthly
Kingdom of Christ ; the Passion of Jesus ; and the Love
of God with the Glory of the Eisen Lord.^ During all
this time the pupil must live in absolute solitude. Neither
sight nor sound from the world of life and action must be
allowed to enter and disturb him. He is exhorted to purge
his mind of every thought but the meditation on which he
is engaged ; to exert all his strength to make his intro-
spection vivid and his converse with the Deity unimpeded.
^ Cf. Directory ^ i. ii. v.
' It is explained that by "week" is meant not a space of time, seven
days, but a distinct subject of meditation. The drill may be finished within
seven or eight days ; it may have to be prolonged beyond the twenty-five.
The first meditation is the basis of all, and it may have to be repeated over
and over again until the soul is sufficiently bruised {Directory, xi. 1).
^ "Prima continet considerationem peccatorum, ut eorum foeditatem
cognoscamus, vereque detestemur cum dolore, et satisfactione convenienti.
Secunda proponit vitam Cliristi ad excitandum in nobis desiderium ac
studium earn imitandi. Quara imitationem ut melius perficiamus, pro-
ponitur etiam modus eligendi vel vitse statimi, qui sit maxime ex voluntate
Dei ; vel si jam eligi non possit, dantur qufedam monita ad eum in quo
quisque sit, reformandum. Tertia continet Passionem Christi, qua miseratio,
dolor, confusio generatur, et illud imitationis desiderium una cum Dei amore
vehementius inflammatur. Quarta demum est de Resurrectione Christi,
ejusque gloriosis apparition ibus, et de beneficiis, et similibus, quae pertinent
ad Dei amorem in nobis excitandum " {Directory y xi, 2),
THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES 541
True meditation, according to Ignatius, ought to include
four things — a preparatory prayer ; prceludia, or the ways
of attuning the mind and sense in order to bring methodi-
cally and vividly some past historical scene or embodiment
of doctrine before the soul of the pupil ; puncta, or definite
heads of each meditation on which the thoughts are to be
concentrated, and on which memory, intellect, and will are
to be individually exercised ; colloquia, or ecstatic converse
with God, without which no meditation is supposed to be
complete, and in which the pupil, having placed the
crucifix before him, talks to God and hears His voice
answering him.
When the soul's progress on the long spiritual journey
in which it is led during these meditations is studied, one
can scarcely fail to note the crass materialism which en-
velops it at every step. The pupil is required to see in
the mirror of his imagination the boundless flames of hell,
and souls encased in burning bodies ; to hear the shrieks,
bowlings, and blasphemies ; to sinell the sulphur and intoler-
able stench ; to taste the saltness of the tears, and to feci
the scorching touch of the flames.^ When the scene in
the Garden of Gethsemane is the subject of meditation, he
must have in the camera obscura of his imagination a
garden, large or small, see its enclosing walls, gaze and
gaze till he discerns where Christ is, where the Apostles
sleep, perceive the drops of sweat, touch the clothes of our
Lord.2 When he thinks of the Nativity, he must conjure
up the figures of Joseph, Mary, the Child, awe? a maid-
servant, hear their homely family talk, see them goino-
^ ** Punctum primum est, spectare per imaginationem vasta inferoruni
incendia, et animas igneis quibusdam corporibns, velut ergastulis inchisas.
Secundum, audire imagiiiarie, planctus, ejulatus, vociferationes, atque
blasphemias in Christum et Sanctos ejus illinc erumpentes. Tertium,
imaginario etiam olfactn fumum, sulphur, et sentinae ciijusdam seu fivcis
atque putredinis graveolcntiam persentire. " Quartum, gustare similiter res
amarissimas, ut lachrymas, rancorem, conscientiaeque vermem. Quintum,
tangere quodammodo ignes illos, quorum tactu anima? ipsae amburiintur"
{Exercitia Spirittialia, Quintum Exercitmin {^it^. lO'o, 106 in Antwerp edition
of 1676)).
^ Exercitia, Tenia Hcbdomai la, ii. Contemplation^. 157).
542 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
about their ordinary work.^ The same crass materialism
envelops the meditations about doctrinal mysteries.
Thinking upon the Incarnation is almost childishly limited
to picturing the Three Persons of the Trinity contemplating
the broad surface of the earth and men hurrying to de-
struction, then resolving that the Second is to descend to
save ; and to the interview between the angel Gabriel and
the Virgin.^
A second characteristic of this scheme of meditation
is the extremely limited extent of its sphere. The atten-
tion is confined to a few scenes in the life of our Lord and
of the Virgin. No lessons from the Old Testament are
admitted. All theological speculation is strictly excluded.
What is aimed at is to produce an intense and concentrated
impression which can never be effaced while life lasts.
The soul is alternately torn by terror and soothed by the
vision of heavenly delights. " The designed effect was to
produce a vivid and varied hypnotic dream of twenty-five
days, from the influence of which a man should never
wholly free himself."^
The outstanding feature, however, of the Exercises and
of the Directory is the minute knowledge they display of
the bodily conditions and accompaniments of states of
spiritual ecstasy, and the continuous, not to say unscrupu-
lous, use they make of physical means to create spiritual
abandon. They master the soul by manipulating the body.
Not that self-examination, honest and careful recognition of
sins and weaknesses in presence of temptation, have no
place in the prolonged course of discipline. This is
inculcated with instructions which serve to make it
detailed, intense, almost scientific. The pupil is ordered to
examine himself twice a day, in the afternoon and in the
evening, and to make clear to himself every sin and failure
that has marked his day's life. He is taught to enter them
all, day by day, in a register, which will show him and his
^ Excrcilia, Tertia Hehdomada, ii. Contwiplatio, pp. 125, 126.
2 Ibid. p. 121.
^ J. A. Symonds, The Renaissance in Ita'y, The Catholic Reaction, i. 289.
THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES 543
confessor his moral condition with arithmetical accuracy.
But during his own period of spiritual struggle and depression
at Manresa, Ignatius, in spite of the mental anguish which
tore his soul, had been noting the bodily accompaniments
of his spiritual states ; and he pursued the same course of
introspection when rejoicing in the later visions of God and
of His grace. The Exercises and the Directory .are full of
minute directions about the physical conditions which
Ignatius had found by experience to be the most suitable
for the different subjects of meditation. The old Buddhist
devotee was instructed to set himself in a spiritual trance
by the simple hypnotic process of gazing at his own navel ;
the Ignatian directions are much more complex. The
glare of day, the uncertainty of twilight, the darkness of
night are all pressed into service ; some subjects are to be
pondered standing upright motionless, others while walking
to and fro in the cell, when seated, when kneeling, when
stretched prone on the floor ; some ought to be meditated
upon while the body is weak with fasting, others soon after
meals ; special hours, the morning, tlie evening, the middle
of the night, are noted as the most profitable times for
different meditations, and these vary with the age and sex
of the disciple. Ignatius recognises the infinite variety
that there is in man, and says expressly that general rules
will not fit every case. The Master of Exercises is therefore
enjoined to study the various idiosyncrasies of his pitients,
and vary his discipline to suit their mental and physical
conditions.
It is due chiefly to this use of the conditions of the
body acting upon the mind that Ignatius was able to
promise to his followers that the ecstasies which had been
liitherto the peculiar privilege of a few favoured saints
should become theirs. The Keformation had made the
world democratic ; and the Counter-Eeformation invited tlie
mob to share the raptures and the visions of a St. Catherine
or a St. Teresa.
The combination of a clear recognition of the fact that
physical condition may account for much in so-called
544 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
spiritual moods with the use made of it to create or
stimulate these moods, cannot fail to suggest questions. It
is easy to understand the Mystic, who, ignorant of the
mysterious ways in which the soul is acted upon by the
body, may rejoice in ecstasies and trances which have been
stimulated by sleepless nights and a prolonged course of
fasting. It is not difficult to understand the man who,
when he has been taught, casts aside with disdain all this
juggling with the soul through the body. But it is hard
to see how anyone who perceived with fatal clearness the
working of the machinery should ever come to think that
real piety could be created in such mechanical ways. To
believe with some that the object Ignatius had was simply
to enslave mankind, to conquer their souls as a great
military leader might master their lives, is both impossible
and intolerable. No one can read the correspondence of
Loyola without seeing that the man was a devout and
earnest-minded Christian, and that he longed to bring
about a real moral reformation among his contemporaries.
Perhaps the key to the difficulty is given when it is
remembered that Ignatius never thought that the raptures
and the terrors his course of exercises produced were an
end in themselves, as did the earlier Mystics. They were
only a means to what followed. Ignatius believed with
heart and soul that the essence of all true religion was the
blindest submission to what he called the " true Spouse
of Christ and our Holy Mother, which is the orthodox,
catholic, and hierarchical Church." We have heard him
during his time of anguish at Manresa exclaim, " Show me,
O Lord, where I can find Thee ; I will follow like a dog,
if I only learn the way of salvation ! " He fulfilled his
vow to the letter. He never entered into the meaning of
our Lord's saying, " Henceforth I call you not servants . . .
but friends " ; he had no understanding of what St. Paul
calls " reasonable service " (XoytKrj Xarpeia). The only
obedience he knew was unreasoning submission, the
obedience of a dog. His most imperative duty, he believed,
lay in the resignation of his intelligence and will to
IGNATIUS IN ITALY 545
ecclesiastical guidance in blind obedience to the Church.
It is sometimes forgotten how far Ignatius carried this. It
is not that he lays upon all Christians the duty of uphold-
ing every portion of the mediaeval creed, of mediaeval
customs, institutions, and superstitions ; or that the
philosophy of St. Thomas of Bonaventura, of the Master
of the Sentences, and of " other recent theologians,^' is to be
held as authoritative as that of Holy Writ ; ^ but " if the
Church pronounces a thing which seems to us white to be
black, we must immediately say that it is black." ^ This
was for him the end of all perfection ; and he found
no better instrument to produce it than the prolonged
hypnotic trance which the Exercises caused.
§ 4. Ignatius in Italy.
In the beginning of 1537 the ten associates found
themselves together at Venice. A war between that
Eepublic and the Turks made it difficult for them to think
of embarking for Palestine ; and they remained, finding
solace in intercourse with men who were longing for a
moral regeneration of the Church. Contarini did much for
them] Vittoria Colonna had the greatest sympathy with
their projects ; Caraffa only looked at them coldly. The
mind of Ignatius was then full of schemes. for improving. the
moral tone of society and of the Church — daily prayer in
the village churches, games of chance forbidden by law ;
priests' concubines forbidden to dress as honest women did,
etc. ; — all of which things Contarini and Vittoria had at
heart.
After a brief stay in Venice, Ignatius, Lainez,. and
Faber travelled to Eome, and were jojued there by the
others in Easter week (1538). No Pontitl" was so
^ These and other declarations of a like kind are to be found in the last
chapter of the Exercitia Spiritual ia, entitled llcgulce aliquot servaiidce td
cum, ortliodoxa Ecclesia vere sentiamus.
~ Jhid. " Si (juid, quod ocnlis nostris apparet album, nigrum ilia (ecclesia
catholica) esse detinierit, debemus itideui, quod nigrum sit, pronuntiare"
{Rcgula, 13, p. 267).
35**
546 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
accessible as Paul in., and the three had an audience, in
which they explained their missionary projects. But this
journey through Italy had evidently given Ignatius and his
companions new ideas. The pilgrimage to Palestine
was definitely abandoned, the money which had been
collected for the voyage was returned to the donors, and
the associates took possession of a deserted convent near
Vicenza to talk over their future. This conference may
be called the second stage in the formation of the Order.
They all agreed to adopt a few simple rules of life — they
were to support themselves by begging ; they were to go
two by two, and one was always to act as the servant for
the time being of the other ; they were to lodge in public
hospitals in order to be ready to care for the sick ; and
they pledged themselves that their chief work would be to
preach to those who did not go to church, and to teach the
young.
The Italian towns speedily saw in their midst a new
kind of preachers, who had caught the habits of the well-
known popular improvisatori. They stood on the kerb-stones
at the corners of streets ; they waved their hats ; they
called aloud to the passers-by. When a small crowd was
gathered they began their sermons. They did not preach
theology. They spoke of the simple commands of God set
forth in the Ten Commandments, and insisted that all sins
were followed by punishment here or hereafter. They set
forth the prescriptions of the Church. They described the
pains of hell and the joys of heaven. The crowds who
gathered could only partially understand the quaint mixture
of Italian and Spanish which they heard. But throughout
the Middle Ages the Italian populace had always been
easily affected by impassioned religious appeals, and the
companions created something like a revival among the
masses of the towns.
It war this experience which made Ignatius decide upon
founding a Company of Jesus. It was the age of military
companies in Italy, and the mind of Ignatius always
resphnded to anything which suggested a soldier's life.
IGNATIUS IN ITALY 547
Other Orders might take the names of their founders ; he
resolved that his personality should be absorbed in that
of his Crucified Lord. The thought of a new Order
commended itself to his nine companions. They left their
preaching, journeyed by various paths to Eome, each of
them meditating on the Constitution which was to be drafted
and presented to the Pope.
The associates speedily settled the outlines of their
Constitution. Cardinal Contarini, ever the friend of Loyola,
formally introduced them to the Pope. In audience,
Ignatius explained his projects, presented the draft Con-
stitution of the proposed new Order, showed how it was to
be a militia vowed to perpetual warfare against all the
enemies of the Papacy, and that one of the vows to be
taken was : " That the members will consecrate their
lives to the continual service of Christ and of the
Popes, will fight under the banner of the Cross, and
will serve the Lord and the Eoman Pontiff as God's
Vicar upon earth, in such wise that they shall be bound
to execute immediately and without hesitation or excuse
all that the reigning Pontiff or his successors may enjoin
upon them for the profit of souls or for the propagation
of the faith, and shall do so in all provinces whithersoever
he may send them, among Turks or any other infidels, to
the farthest Ind, as well as in the region of heretics,
schismatics, or unbelievers of any kind." Paul >iii. was
impressed with the support that, the proposed Order
would bring to the Papacy in its time- of stress. He is
reported to have said that he recognised the Spirit of
God in the proposals laid before him, and he knew that
the associates were popular all over Italy, and among the
people of Eome. But all such schemes had to be referred
to a commission of three Cardinals to report before formal
sanction could be cjiven.
Then Loyola's troubles" began. The astute politicians
who guided the counsels of the Vatican were suspicious
of the movement. They had no great liking for Spanish.
Mysticism organised as a fighting force ; they disliked the
548 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
enormous powers to be placed in the hands of the General
of the " Company " ; they believed that the Church had
suffered from the multiplication of Orders ; eight months
elapsed before all these difficulties were got rid of.
Ignatius has placed on record that they were the hardest
months in his life.
During their prolonged audience Paul ill. had recognised
the splendid erudition of Lainez and Faber. He engaged
them, and somewhat later Salmeron, as teachers of
theology in the Eoman University, where they won
golden opinions. Ignatius meanwhile busied himself in
perfecting his Exercises, in explaining them to influential
persons, and in inducing many to try their effect upon
their own souls. Contarini begged for and received a
MS. copy. Dr. Ortiz, the Ambassador of Charles v. at Rome,
submitted himself to the discipline, and became an enthusi-
astic supporter. " It was then," says Ignatius, " that I
first won the favour and respect of learned and influential
men." But the opposition was strong. The old accusa-
tions of heresy were revived. Ignatius demanded and
was admitted to a private audience of the Pope. He has
described the interview in one of his letters.^ He spoke
with His Holiness for more than an hour in his private
room ; he explained the views and intentions of himself
and of his companions ; he told how he had been accused
of heresy several times in Spain and at Paris, how he
had even been imprisoned at Alcala and Salamanca, and
that in each case careful inquiry had established his
innocence ; he said he knew that men who wished to
preach incurred a great responsibility before God and
man, and that they must be free from every taint of
eironeous doctrine ; and he besought the Pope to examine
and test him thoroughly.^ On Sept. 27th, 1540, the Bull
^ Cartas de San Ignacio de Loyola, fundador de la Compania de Jesus
(Madrid, 1874, etc.), No. 14.
2 Ignatius was fond of recalling these accusations and acquittals. In
a celebrated letter to the King of Portugal he said that he had been eight
times accused of heresy and as often acquitted, and that these accusations
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 549
Regimini militantis ecdcsice was published, and the Company
of Jesus was founded. The student band of Montmartre,
the association of revivalist preachers of Vicenza, became
a new Order, a holy militia pledged to fight for the
Papacy against all its assailants everywhere and at all
costs. In the Bull the members of the Company were
limited to sixty, whether as a concession to opponents or
in accordance with the wishes of Ignatius, is unknown.
It micrht have been from the latter cause. In times of its
greatest popularity the number of members of full standing
has never been very large — not more than one per cent,
of those who bear the name.^ The Hmitation, from
whatever motive it was inserted, was removed in - a
second Bull, Injunction nobis, dated March 14th, 1543.
I 5. The Society of Jesus.
On April 4th, 1541, six out of the ten original
members of the Order (four were absent from Kome) met
to elect their General ; three of those at a distance sent
their votes in writing ; Ignatius was chosen unanimously.
He declined the honour, and was again elected on April
7th. He gave way, and on April 22nd (1541 ) he received
the vows of his associates in the church of San Faolo
f'uori le mura.
The new Order became famous at once ; numbers
sought to join it ; and Ignatius found himself compelled
to admit more members than he hked. He felt that the
more his Society increased in numbers and the wider its
sphere of activity, the greater the need for a strict system
of laws to govern it. All other Orders of monks had
their rules, which stated the duties of the members, the
had really arisen, not from any associations- he had ever had with schismatics,
Lutherans, or Alumhrados (heretical Mystics), but from the astonishment
caused by the fact that he, an unlearned man, should presume to speak
about things divine {Cartas dc San Jgnacio, etc., No. 52).
I At the time of Ignatius' death (1556), " the Professed of the Four Vows,"
who were the Society in the strictest sense, and who alone had any share
in its government, numbered only thirty-five.
550 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
mode of their living together, and expressed the common
sentiment which bound them to each other. The Company
of Jesus, which from the first was intended to have a
strict military discipline, and whose members were meant
to be simply dependent units in a great machine moved
by the man chosen to be their General, required such rules
even more than any other. Ignatius therefore set himself
to work on a Constitution. All we know of the first
Constitution presented by the ten original members when
they had their audience with Pope Paul iii., is contained
in the Bull of Foundation, and it is evident that it was
somewhat vague. It did contain, however, four features,
perhaps five, if the fourth vow of special obedience to the
Pope be included, which were new. The Company was
to be a fighting Order, a holy militia ; it was to work for
the propagation of the faith, especially by the education
of the young ; the members were not to wear any special
or distinctive dress ; and the power placed in the hands
of the General was much greater than that permitted to
the heads of any other of the monastic Orders. At the
same time, constitutional limitations, resembling those in
other Orders, were placed on the power of the General.
There was to be a council, consisting of a majority of the
members, whom the General was ordered to consult on all
important occasions ; and in less weighty matters he was
bound to take the advice of the brethren near him.
Proposed changes tending to free the General from these
limitations were given effect to in the Bulls, Licet dehitum
pastoralis officii (Oct. 18th, 1549) and Exposcit pasto7'alis
officii (July 21st, 1550); but the Bulls themselves make
it clear that the Constitution had not taken final form
even then. It is probable that the completed Constitution
drafted by Ignatius was not given to the Society until
after his death.
The way in which he went to work was characteristic
of the man, at once sternly practical and wildly visionary.
He first busied himself with arrangements for starting the
educational work which the Company had undertaken
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 551
to do ; he assorted the members of his Society into
various classes ; ^ and then he turned to the Constitution.
He asked four of his original companions, Lainez, Salmeron,
Broet,*and Jay, all of whom were in liorrie, to go carefully
over all the promises which liad l)een made to the Pope,
or what might be implied in them, and from this material
to form a draft Constitution. He gave them one "direction
only to guide them in their work : they were to see that
nothing was set down which might imply that it was a
deadly sin to alter the rules of the Company in time to come.
The fundamental aim of his Company was diU'erent from
that of all other Orders. It was not to consist of societies
of mea who lived out of the world to save their own souls,
as did the Benedictines ; nor was it established merely to
be a preaching association, like the Dominicans ; it was
more than a fraternity of love, like the Franciscans. It
was destined to aid fellow-men in every way possible ; and
by fellow-men Ignatius meant the obedient children of the
catholic hierarchical Church. It was to fight the enemies
of God's Vicar upon earth with every weapon available.
The rules of other Orders could not help him much. He
had to think all out for himself. During these months
and years Ignatius kept a diary, in which he entered as in
a ledger his moods of mind, the thoughts that passed
through it, the visions he saw, and the hours at which
they came to him.^ Every possible problem connected
with the Constitution of his Company was pondered
painfully. It took him a month's meditation ere he saw
^ The Society came to consist of (1) Novices who had been carefully
selected (a) for the priesthood, or (h) for secular work, or (c) whose special
vocation was yet undetermined — the Indiffcrents ; (2) the Scholastics, ■ who
had passed through a noviciate of two years, and who had to spend five
years in study, then five years as teachers of junior classes ;. (3) Coadjutors,
spiritual or temporal — the one set sharing in all the missionary work of
the Society, preaching or teaching, the otlie'r in the corresjwiiding temporal
duties; (4) the Professed of the Four Vows, who were the elite of the Society,
and who alone had a share in its government. Heads of Colleges and
Residences were taken from the third class.
- This diary was used by Vigilio Nolarci in his Compendia dclla Vita
di S. Ignaiio di Loiola {Yenice, 2nd ed., 1687), pp. 197-211.
552 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
how to define the relation of the Society to property.
Every sohition came to him in a flash with the effect
of a revelation, usually in the short hour before Mass.
Once, he records, it took place " on the street as I re-
turned from Cardinal Carpi." It was in this way that
the Constitution grew under his hands, and he believed
that both it and the Exercises were founded on direct
revelations from God.
This was the Constitution which was presented by
Lainez to the assembly which elected him the successor
of Loyola (July 2nd, 1558), The new General added a
commentary or Directorium of his own, which was also
accepted. It received papal sanction under Pius iv.
In this Constitution the Society of Jesus was revealed
as an elaborate hierarchy rising from Novices through
Scholastics, Coadjutors, Professed of Four Vows, with the
General at its head, an autocrat, controlling every part,
even the minutest, of the great machine. Nominally, he
was bound by the Constitution, but the inner principle of
this elaborate system of laws was apparent fixity of type
qualified by the utmost laxity in practice. The most
stable principles of the- Constitution were explained or
explained away in the Directorium, and by such an
elaborate labyrinth of exceptions that it proved no barrier
to the will of the General. He stood with his hand on
the lever, and could do as he pleased with the vast
machine, which responded in all its parts to his slightest
touch. He had almost unlimited power of " dispensing
with formalities, freeing from obligations, shortening and
lengthening the periods of initiation, retarding or advancing i
a member in his career." Every member of the Society
was bound to obey his immediate superiors as if they
stood for him in the place of Christ, and that to the extent
of doing what he considered wrong, of believing that black
was white if the General so willed it. The General resided
at Eome, holding all the threads of the complicated affairs
of the Society in his hands, receiving minute reports of the
secret and personal history of every one of its members,
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 553
dealing as he pleased with the highest as well as the lowest
of his subordinates.
" Yet the General of the Jesuits, like the Doge of Venice,
had his hands tied by subtly powerful though almost
invisible fetters. He was subjected at every hour of the
day and night to the surveillance of five sworn spies,
especially appointed to prevent him from altering the type
or neglecting the concerns of the Order. The first of these
functionaries, named the Administrator, who was frequently
also the confessor of the General, exhorted him to obedience,
and reminded him that he must do all things for the glory
of God. Obedience and the glory of God, in Jesuit phrase-
ology, meant the maintenance of the Company. The other
four were styled Assistants. They had under their charge
the affairs of the chief provinces ; one overseeing the Indies,
another Portugal and Spain, a third France and Germany,
a fourth Italy and Sicily. Together with the Administrator,
the Assistants were nominated by the General Congregation
(an assembly of the Professed of the Four Vows), and could
not be removed or replaced without its sanction. It was
their duty to regulate the daily life of the General, to
control his private expenditure on the scale which they
determined, to prescribe what he should eat and drink,
to appoint his hours for sleep, and rehgious exercises, and
the transaction of public business. . . . The Company of
Jesus was thus based upon a system of mutual and pervasive
espionage. The novice on entering had all his acts, habits,
and personal qualities registered. As he advanced in. his
career, he was surrounded by jealous brethren, whp felt it
their duty to report his slightest weakness to a superior.
The superiors were watched by one another and by their
inferiors. Masses of secret information poured into the
secret cabinet of the General ; and the General himself ate,
slept, prayed, worked, and moved beneath the fixed gaze of
ten vigilant eyes." ^
Historians have not been slow to point, out the evils
which this Society has wrought in the world, its purely
political aims, the worldliness which deadened its spiritual
life, and its degradation of morals, which had so much to
^ Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, The Catholic Reaction (London,.
1886), i. 293, 294.
554 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
do with sapping the ethical life of the seventeenth and eight-
eenth centuries. It is frequently said that the cool-headed
Lainez is responsible for most of the e^dl, and that a change
may be dated from his Generalship. There seems to be a
wide crulf fixed between the Mvstic of Manresa, the revival
preacher of Yieenza, the genuine home mission work in
Eome, and the astute, ruthless worldly political work of
the Society. Yet almost all the changes may be traced
back to one root, the conception which Ignatius held of
what was meant by true religion. It was for him, from
first to last, an unreasoning, blind obedience to the
dictates of the catholic hierarchic Church. It was this
which poisoned the very vktues which gave Loyola's
intentions their strength, and introduced an inhuman
element from the start.
He set out with the noble thought that he would
work for the good of his fellow-men ; but his idea of
religion narrowed his horizon. His idea of " neighbour '*
never went beyond the thought of one who owed entu-e
obedience to the Eoman Pontiff — all others were as much
outside the sphere of the brotherhood of mankind as the
followers of Mahomet were for the earliest Crusaders.
Godfrev of Bouillon was both devout and tender-hearted,
yet when he rode, a conqueror, into Jerusalem up the
street filled with the corpses of slaughtered Moslems, he
saw a babe wriggling on the breast of its dead mother,
and, stooping in his saddle, he seized it by the ankle and
dashed its head against the wall. For Ignatius, as for
Godfrey, all outside the cathoHc and hierarchic Church
were not men, but wolves.
He was filled with the heroic conception that his
Company was to aid their fellow-men in every department
of earthly life, and the poHtical drove out all other
considerations ; for it contained the spheres within which
the whole human Hfe is Hved. Thus, while he preferred for
himself the society of learned and devout men, his acute
Basque brain soon perceived their limitations, and the
Jesuit historian Orlandino tells us that Ignatius selected
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 555
the members of his Company from men who knew the
world, and were of good social position. He forbade very
rightly the folUes of ascetic piety, when the disciphne of
the Exercises had been accomplished ; it was only repeated
when energies flagged or symptoms of insubordination
appeared. Then the General ordered a second ccrurse, as
a physician sends a patient to the cure at some watering-
place. The Constitution directs that novices were to be
sought among those who had a comely presence, with good
memories, manageable tempers, quick observation, and free
from all indiscreet devotion. The Society formed to fight
the Kenaissance as well as Protestantism, borrowed from its
enemy the thought of general culture, training every part
of the mind and body, and rendering the possessor a man
of the, world.
No one can read the letters of Ignatius without seein.^
the fund of native tenderness that there was in the stern
Spanish soldier. That it was no mere sentiment appears
in many ways, and in none more so than in his infinite
pity for the crowds of fallen women in Rome, and in his
wise methods of rescue work. It was this tenderness which
led him to his greatest mistake. He held that no one
could "be saved who was not brought to a state of abject
obedience to the hierarchic Church ; that such obedience
was the only soil in which true virtues- could be planted
and grow. He believed, moreover, that the way in which
the " common man" could be thoraughly broken to this
obedience was through the confessional and the directorate,
and therefore that no one should be scared from confession
or from trust in his director by undue severity. In his
ragerness to secure these inestimable benefits for the
largest number of men, he over and over again enjoined
the members of his Society to be very cautious in coming to
the conclusion that any of their • penitents was guilty of a
mortal sin. Such was the almost innocent beginning of
that Jesuit casuistry which in the end' almost wiped out
the possibihty of anyone who professed obedience commit -
tincr a mortal sin, and occasioned the profane description
556 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
of Father Bauny, the famous French director — " Bauny qui
tollit peccata mundi per definitionem."
The Society thus organised became powerful almost at
once. It made rapid progress in Italy. Lainez was sent
to Venice, and fought the slumbering Protestantism there,
at Brescia, and in the Val Tellina. Jay was sent to
Ferrara to counteract the influence of Eenee of France, its
Duchess. Salmeron went to Naples and Sicily. The chief
Italian towns welcomed the members of the new Order.
Noble and devout ladies gave their aid. Colleges were
opened ; schools, where the education was not merely free,
but superior to what was usually given, were soon crowded
with pupils. Eome remained the centre and stronghold of
the Company.
Portugal was won at once. Xavier aud Eodriguez
were sent there. They won over King John, and he
speedily became their obedient pupil. He delivered into
their hands his new University at Coimbra, and the
Humanist teachers, George Buchanan among them, were
persecuted and dispersed, and replaced by Jesuit professors.
Spain was more difficult to win. The land was the
stronghold of the Dominicans, and had been so for genera-
tions ; and they were unwilling to admit any intruders.
But the new Order soon gained ground. It was native to
the soil. It had its roots in that Mysticism which pervaded
the whole Peninsula. Ignatius gained one distinguished
convert, Francis Borgia, Duke of Candia and Viceroy of
Catalonia. He placed the University he had founded in
their hands. He joined the Order, and became the third
General. His influence counterbalanced the suspicions of
Charles v., who had no liking for sworn bondmen of the
Vatican, and they soon laid firm bold on the people.
In France their progress was slow. The University
and the Parlement of Paris opposed them, and the Sorbonne
made solemn pronouncement against their doctrine. Still
they were able to found Colleges at St. Omer, Douai, and
Rheims.
Ignatius had his eye on Germany from the first. He
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 557
longed to combat heresy in the land of its birth. Boabdilla,
Faber, and Jay were sent there at once. Boabdilla won the
confidence of William, Duke of Bavaria ; Jay insinuated
himself into the counsels of Ferdinand of Austria, and
Faber did the most important work of the three by winning
Tor the Society, Petrus Canisius. He was the son of a
patrician of Nymwegen, trained in Humanist lore, drawn
by inner sympathy to the Christian Mysticism of Tauler,
and yet steadfast in his adherence to the theology of the
mediaeval Church. Faber soon became conscious of his
own deficiencies for the work to be done in Germany.
His first appearance was at the Beligious Conference at
Worms, where he found himself face to face with Calvin
and Melanchthon, and where his colleagues, Eck and
Cochlftius, were rather ashamed of him. The enthusiastic
Savoyard lacked almost everything for the position into
which, at the bidding of his General, he had thrust himself.
Since then he had been wandering through those portions
of Germany which had remained faithful to Eome, seeking
individual converts to the principles of the Society,
and above all some one who had the gifts for the
work Ignatius hoped to do in that country. It is some-
what interesting to note that almost all the German
Roman CathoHcs who were attracted by him to the new
Order were men who had leanings towards the fourteenth
century Mystics — men like Gerard Hammond, Prior of the
Carthusians of Koln. Faber caught Canisius by means of
his Mysticism. He met him at Mainz, explained the
Excrcitia Sjnritualia to him, induced the young man to
undergo the course of discipline which tliey prescribed, and
won him for Loyola and the Company. " He is the man,"
wrote Faber to Ignatius, " whom I have been seeking — if
he is a man, and not rather an angel of the Lord."
Ignatius speedily recognised the value of the new
recruit. He saw that he was not a man to be kept long in
the lower ranks of the Company, and gave him more liberty
of action than he allowed to his oldest associates. Faber
had sent him grievous reports about the condition of affairs
558 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
in Germany. " It is not misinterpretation of Scripture,"
he wrote, " not specious arguments, not the Lutherans with
their preaching and persuasions, that have lost so many
provinces and towns to the Koman Church, but the
scandalous lives of the ministers of religion." He felt
his helplessness. He was a foreigner, and the Germans did
not like strangers. He could not speak their language, and
his Latin gave him a very limited audience. People and
priests looked on him as a spy sent to report their
weaknesses to Eome. When he discoursed about the
Exercitia, and endeavoured to induce men to try them, he
was accused of urging a " new religion." When he
attempted to form student associations in connection with
the Company, it was said that he was urging the formation
of "conventicles" outside the Church's ordinances. But
the adhesion of Canisius changed all that. He was a
German, one of themselves ; his orthodoxy was undisputed ;
he was an eminent scholar, the most distinguished of the
young masters of the University of Koln, a leader among
its most promising students. Under his guidance the
student associations grew strong ; after his example young
men offered themselves for the discipline of the Exercises.
Loyola saw that he had gained a powerful assistant. He
longed to see him personally at Eome; but he was so
convinced of his practical wisdom that he left it to himself
either to come to Italy or to remain in Germany. Canisius
decided to remain. Affairs at Koln were then in a critical
state. The Archbishop-Elector, Hermann von Wied, favoured
the Eeformation. He had thoughts of secularising his
Electorate, and if he succeeded in his design his example
might be followed in another ecclesiastical Electorate, with
the result that the next Emperor would be a Protestant.
Canisius organised the people, the clergy, the University
authorities against this, and succeeded in defeating the
designs of the Archbishop. When his work at Koln was
done, he went to Vienna. There he became the confessor
and private adviser of Ferdinand of Austria, administered
lie affau's of the diocese of Vienna during a long episcopal
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 559
interregnum, helped to found its Jesuit College, and another
at Ingolstadt. These Colleges became the centres of Jesuit
influence in Germany, and helped to spread the power of
the Society. But with all this activity it can scarcely be
said that the Company was very powerful in that country
until years after the Council of Trent.
The foreign mission activity of the Jesuits" has been
often described, and much of the early progress of the
Company has been attributed to the admiration created by
the work of Francis Xavier and his companions. This was
undoubtedly true ; but in the earliest times it was
the home mission successes that drew most attention
and sympathy; and these have been too often left
unmentioned.
IS^othing lay nearer the hearts of devout persons who
refused to accept the Eeformation than the condition of the
great proportion of the Eoman CathoUc priests in all
countries, and the depravity of morals among laity and
clergy alike. Ignatius was deeply affected by both
scandals, and had resolved from the first to do his
best to cure them. It was this resolve and the accompany-
ing strenuous endeavours which won Ignatius the respect
and sympathy of all those in Italy who were sighing for a
reform in the moral life of people and clergy, and brought
the Company of Jesus into line with Italian Eeformer^ like
Contarini, Ghiberti, and Vittoria Colonna. His system of
Colleges and the whole use he made of education could have
only one result — to give an educated clergy to the Eoman
Church. It was a democratic extension of the work of
Caraffa and Gsetano da Thiene. Ignatius had also clear
views about the way to produce a reformation of morals in
Eome. Like Luther, he insisted that it must begin in the
individual life, and could not be produced by stringent
legislation ; " it must start in the individual, spread to the
family, and then permeate the metropolis. 'J^ But mean-
while something might be done to hescl the worst running
sores of society. Like Luther, Ignatius fastened on three
—^the waste of child life, the plague of begging, and what is
560 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
called the " social evil " ; if his measure of success in
dealing with the evils fell far short of Luther's, the more
corrupted condition of Italy had something to do with his
failure.
His first measure of social reform was to gather Eoraan
children, either orphans or deserted by their parents. They
were gratuitously housed, fed, and taught in a simple fashion,
and were instructed in the various mechanical arts which
could enable them to earn a living. In a brief time,
Ignatius had over two hundred boys and girls in his two
industrial schools.
How to cure the plague of beggars which infested all
Eoman Catholic countries, a curse for which the teaching
of the mediseval Church was largely responsible,^ had been
a problem studied by Ignatius ever since his brief visit to
his native place in 1535. There he had attempted to get
the town council of Azpeitia to forbid begging within the
bounds of the city, and to support the deserving and
helpless poor at the town's cost. He urged the same
policy on the chief men in Eome. When he failed in his
large and public schemes, he attempted to work them out
by means of charitable associations connected with and
fostered by his Society.
Nothing, however, excited the sympathy of Loyola so
much as the numbers and condition of fallen women in all
the larger Italian towns. He was first struck with it in
Venice, where he declared that he would willingly give his
life to hinder a day's sin of one of these unfortunates. The
magnitude of the evil in Eome appalled him. He felt that
it was too great for him to meddle with as a whole.
Something, however, he could attempt, and did. In Eome,
which swarmed with men vowed to celibacy simply because
they had something to do with the Church, prostitution
was frequently concealed under the cloak of marriage.
Husbands lived by the sinful life of their wives. Deserted
wives also swelled the ranks of unfortunates. Loyola
provided homes for any such as might wish to leave their
1 Cf. vol. i. p. 142.
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 561
degrading life. At first they were simply taken into
families whom Ignatius persuaded to receive them. The
numbers of the rescued grew so rapidly that special houses
were needed. Ignatius called them " Martha-Houses."
They were in no sense convents. There was, of course,
oversight, but the idea was to provide a bright home where
these women could earn their own living or the greater
part of it. The scheme spread to many of the large Italian
towns, and many ladies were enlisted in the plans to help
their fallen sisters.
Loyola's associations to provide ransom for Christian
captives among the Moslems, his attempts to discredit
duelling, his institutions for loans to the poor, can only be
alluded to. It was these works of Christian charity which
undoubtedly gained the immediate sympathy for the
Company which awaited it in most lands south of the
Alps.
Almost all earlier monastic Orders provided a place for
women among their organisation. An Ordpr of Nuns
corresponded to the Order of Monks. Few founders
of monastic Orders have owed so much to women as
Ignatius did. A few ladies of Barcelona were his earliest
disciples, were the first to undergo the discipline of the
Exercises^ then in an imperfect shape, and encouraged hiiai
when he needed it most by their faith in him and his plans.^
One of them, Isabella Eoser (Rosel, Eosell), a noblq matron,
wife of Juan Roser, heard Ignatius deliver one of his first
sermons, and was so impressed by it, - that she and her
husband invited him to stay in their house, which he did.
She paid all his expenses while he went to' school and
college in Spain. She and her friends sent him large sums
of money when he was in Paris. Ignatius could never
have carried out his plans but for her sympathy and
assistance. In spite of all this, Ignatius came early to the
conclusion that his Company should have as little as
^ Mauy of Loyola's letters are addressed to these ladies : Cartas, i. pp. 1,
4, 23, to Ines Pasciial ; pp. 16, 63, 112, 279, to Isabella Roser ; pp. 34, 44,
177, to Teresa Rejadella de St. Clara, a nun.
36**
562 IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND THE COMPANY OF JESUS
possible to do with the direction of women's souls (it took
30 much time, he complained) ; that women w^ere too
emotional to endure the whole discipline of the Exercises ;
and that there must never be Jesuit nuns. The work he
meant his Company to do demanded such constant and
strained activity — a Jesuit must stand with only one foot
on the ground, he said, the other must be raised ready to
start wherever he was despatched — that women were unfit
for it. That was his firm resolve, and he was to suffer
for it.
In 1539 he had written to Isabella Eoser that he
hoped God w^ould forget him if he ever forgot all that she
had done for him ; and it is probable that some sentences
nonintentional on the part of the writer) had made the
lady, now a widow, believe that she was destined to play
the part of Clara to this Francis. At all events (1543)
she came to Eome, accompanied by two friends bringing
with them a large sum of money, sorely needed by Ignatius
to erect his house in Eome for the Professed of the Four
Vows. In return, they asked him to give some time to
advise them in spiritual things. This Ignatius did, but
not with the minuteness nor at the length expected. He
declared that the guidance of the souls of the three ladies
for three days cost him more than the oversight of his
whole Society for a month. Then it appeared that Isabella
Eoser wanted more. She was a woman of noble gifts, no
weak sentimental enthusiast. She had studied theology
widely and profoundly. Her learning and abilities im-
pressed the Cardinals whom she met and with whom she
talked. She desired Ignatius to create an Order of Jesuit
nuns of w^hom she should be the head. When he refused
thpre was a great quarrel. She demanded back the money
she had given ; and when this was refused, she raised an
action in the Eoman courts. She lost her case, and
returned indignant to Spain.^ Poor Isabella Eoser — she
was not a derelict, and so less interesting to a physician of
souls ; but she needed comforting like other people. She
1 Cf. Carlas, i. pp. 291, 470, 471.
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 563
forgave her old friend, and their correspondence was renewed.
She died the year before Ignatius.
When the Society of Jesus was at the height of its
power in the seventeenth century, another and equally
unsuccessful attempt was made to introduce an Order of
Jesuit nuns.
Ignatius died at the age of sixty-five, thirty^five years
after his conversion, and sixteen after his Order had
received the apostolic benediction. His Company had
become the most powerful force within the reanimated
Eoman Church; it had largely moulded the theology of
Trent ; and it seemed to be winning back Germany. It
had spread in the swiftest fashion. Ignatius had seen
estabhshed twelve Provinces — Portugal, Castile, Aragon,
Andalusia, Italy (Loinbaidy and Tuscany), Naples,
Sicily, Germany, Flanders, France, Brazil, and the East
Indies.
CHAPTER V.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.^
§ 1. The Assemhling of the Council.
The General Council, the subject of many negotiations
between the Emperor and the Pope, was at last finally
fixed to meet at Trent in 1545.^ The city was the
^ Sources : The Canoiis and Decrees of the Council of Trent (London,
1851) ; Theiner, Acta genuina Concilii Tridentini (1875) ; Dollinger, Tinged-
ruckte Berichte und Tagehiicher zur Geschichte des Concils von Trient (Nord-
lingen, 1876) ; Grisar, lacohi Lainez Disputationss Tridentince (Innsbruck,
1886) ; Le Plat, Monumentorum ad historiam Concilii Tridentini potissimum
illustrandum spectantium amplissima collectio (Louvain, 1781-87) ; Paleotto,
Acta Concilii Tridentini, 1562-63 ; Planck, Anecdota ad Historiam concilii
Tridentini j)ertinentia (Gottingen, 1791-1818) ; Sickel, " Das Reformations-
Libell Ferdinands i." (in Archivfilr osterreichische Geschichte, xiv., Vienna,
1871), Catechismus Romanus (Paris, 1635); Denzinger, Enchiridion (Wiirz-
burg, 1900).
Later Books: Maurenbrecher, " Tridentiner Concil, Vorspiel und
Einleitung " (in the Hislm-isches Taschensbuch, sechste Folge, 1886, pp. 147-
256), " Begriindung der katholischen Glaubenslehre" (in the Hist. Tasch.
1888, pp. 305-28), and "Die Lehre von der Erbsiinde und der Rechtferti-
gung " (in the Hist. Tasch. 1890, pp. 237-330) ] Harnack, History of
Dogma, vii. (London, 1899) ; Loofs, Leitfaden zuni studium der Dog-
mengeschichte (Halle, 1893) ; R. C. Jenkins, Pre-Tridentine Doctrine
(London, 1891) ; Froude, Lectures on the Council of Trent (London,
1896) ; Sickel, Zur Geschichte des Concils von Trient (Vienna, 1872),
an(^ Die Geschdfts-ordnung des Concils von Trient (Vienna, 1871) ;
Milledonne, Journal de Concile de Trente (Paris, 1870) ; Braunsberger
Entstehung und erste Entwicklung der Katechismen des Petrus Coynisitts
(Freiburg i. B. 1893) ; Dejob, De Vinfluence du Concile de Trente (Paris,
1884) ; Paolo Sarpi, History of the Council of Trent (London, 1619) ;
Lettere di Era Paolo Sarpi (Florence, 1863).
2 For an account of these negotiations, and for the false start made on
Nov. 1st, 1542, see W. Maurenbrecher, " Tridentiner Concil, Vorspiel und
Einleitung," Historischca Taschenbuch, Sechste Folge, 1886, pp. 147-256 ;
564
THE ASSEMBLING OF THE COUNCIL 565
capital of a small episcopal principality, its secular over-
lord was the Count of the Tyrol, whose deputy resided in
the town. It was a frontier place with about a thousand
houses, including four or five fine buildings and a large
palace of the Prince Bishop. It contained several churches,
one of which, Santa Maria Maggiore, was reserved for the
meetings of the Council.^ Its inhabitants were partly
Italian and partly German — the two nationalities living
in separate quarters and retaining their distinctive customs
and dress. It was a small place for such an assembly, and
could not furnish adequate accommodation for the crowd of
visitors a General Council always involved.
The Papal Legates entered Trent in state on the 13th
of March (1545). Heavy showers of rain marred the
impressive display. They were received by the local
clergy with enthusiasm, and by the populace with an
absolute indifference. Months passed before the Council
was opened. Few delegates were present when the papal
Legates arrived. The representatives of the Emperor and
those of Venice came early ; Bishops arrived in straggling
groups during April and May and the months that followed.
The necessary papal Brief did not reach the town till the
11th* of December, and the Council was formally opened
on the 13th. The long leisurely opening was symptomatic
of the history of the Council. Its proceedings were spread
over a period of eighteen years: — under Pope Paul ill.,
1545_47, including Sessions i. to x. ; under Pope Julius
TIL, 1551-52, including Sessions xi. to-xvi. ; under Pc^pc
Pius IV., 1562-1563, including Sessions xvii. to xxv.^
also Cambridge Modern History, ii. 660/. It seems to be pretty certain
that the fear that the Germans iniglit hold a National Council and the
possibility that there might result a National German Church independent
of Rome on the lines laid down by Henry vi.ir. of England, was the motive
which finally compelled Pope Paul III. to decide on summoning a General
Council ; cf. i. pp. 378, 379.
^ The church now contains a picture on the north wall of the choir of
the group of theologians who were members of the Council.
~ The Council sat at Trent from the 13th Dec. L545 to t]w 11th March
1547 (Sesbions i.-viii.) ; at Bologna from the 21st of April to the 2ud of
566 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
The Papal Legates were Gian Maria Giocchi, Cardinal
del Monte, a Tuscan who had early entered the service of
the Eoman Curia, a profound jurist and a choleric man of
fifty-seven (first President) ; Marcello Cervini, Cardinal da
Sante Croce ; and Cardinal Eeginald Pole, the Englishman.
The three represented the three tendencies which were
apparent in ecclesiastical Italy. The first belonged to the
party which stood by the old unreformed Curia, and
wished no change. Cervini represented the growing
section of the Church, which regarded Cardinal Caraffa as
their leader. They sought eagerly and earnestly a reform
in life and character, especially among the clergy ; but
refused to make any concessions in doctrines, ceremonies,
or institutions to the Protestants. They differed from the
more reforming Spanish and French ecclesiastical leaders in
their dislike of secular interference, and believed that the
Popes should have more rather than less power. Eeginald
Pole was one of those liberal Eoman CathoHcs of
whom Cardinal Contarini was the distinguished leader.
He was made a Legate probably to conciliate his
associates. He was a man whom most people liked and
nobody feared — a harmless, pliant tool in the hands of a
diplomatist like Cervini. The new Society of Jesus was
represented by Lainez and Salmeron, who went to the
Council with the dignity of papal theologians — a title
which gave them a special standing and influence.
According to the arrangement come to between the
Emperor and the Pope, the Bull summoning the Council
declared that it was called for the three purposes of over-
coming the religious schism ; of reforming the Church ;
and of calHng a united Christendom to a crusade against
unbelievers. By general consent the work of the Council
was limited to the first two objects. They were stated in
terms vague enough to cover real diversity of opinion
about the work the Council was expected to do.
June 1547 (Sessions ix.-x.) ; at Trent from the 1st of May 1551 to the 28th
of April 1552 (Session xi.-xvi.) ; and at Trent from the 18th of Jan. 1562 to
the 3rd of Dec. 1563 (Sessions xvii.-xxv.).
THE ASSEMBLING OF THE COUNCIL 567
Almost all believed that the questions of reforming
the Church and dealing with the religious revolt were in-
separably connected ; but the differences at once emerged
when the method of treating the schism was discussed.
Many pious Eoman Catholics believed that the
Lutheran movement was a divine punishment for the sins
of the Church, and that it would disappear if the Church
was thoroughly reformed in life and morals. They differed
about the agency to be employed to effect the reformation.
The Italian party, who followed Cardinal Caraffa, main-
tained that full powers should be in the hands of the
Pope ; non-Italians, especially the Spaniards, thought it
vain to look for any such reformation so long as the Curia,
itself the seat of the greatest corruption, remained unfe-
formed, and contended that the secular authority ought to
be allowed more power to put down ecclesiastical scandals.
The Emperor, Charles v., had come to believe that
there were no insuperable differences of doctrine between
the Lutherans and the Eoman Catholics, and that mutual
explanations and a real desire to give and take, com-
bined with the removal of scandals which all alike deplored,
would heal the schism. He had never seen the gulf w'hich
the Lutheran principle of the spiritual priesthood of all
believers had created between the Protestants and mediieval
doctrines and ceremonies.^ He persisted in this belief long
after the proceedings at Trent had left him hopeless of
seeing the reconciliation he had expected brought about
by the Council he had done so much .to get summoned.
The Augsburg Interim (1548) shows what he thought
might have been done.^ He was badly seconded at Trent.
The only Bishop who supported his views heartily was
Madruzzo, the Prince Bishop of Trent ; his representative,
Diego de Mendoza, fell ill shortly after the apening of the
Council, and his substitute, Francisco de Toledo, did not
reach Trent until March 1546.
^ It was enough for him that the Protestants held the Twelve Articles
(the Apostles' Creed) ; cf. i. 264 n. ; and ii. 517, 518.
- ("f. i. 390.'
568 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
§ 2. Procedure at the Council.
The ablest of the three Legates, Cervini, had a definite
plan of procedure before him. He Enew thoroughly the
need for drastic reforms in the life and morals of the
clergy and for purifying the Eoman Curia ; but, with the
memories of Basel and Constance before him, he dreaded
above all things a conflict between the Pope and the
Council, and he believed that such a quarrel was imminent
if the Council itself undertook to reform the Curia. His
idea was that the Council ought to employ itself in the
useful, even necessary task of codifying the doctrines of
the Church, so that all men might discern easily what was
the true Catholic faith. While this was being done,
opportunity would be given to the Pope himself to reform
the Curia — a task which would be rendered easier by the
consciousness that he had the sympathy of the Council
behind him. He scarcely concealed his opinion that such
codification should make no concessions to the Protestants,
but would rather show them to be in hopeless antagonism
to the Catholic faith. He did not propose any general
condemnation of what he, thought to be Lutheran errors ;
but he wished the separate points of doctrine which
the Lutherans had raised — Justification, the authority of
Holy Scripture, the Sacraments — to be examined carefully
and authoritatively defined. In this way heretics would
be taught the error of their ways without mentioning
names, and without the specific condemnation of individuals.
He expounded his plan of procedure to the Council.
His suggestions were by no means universally well
received by the delegates. The proposal to leave reforms
to the Pope provoked many speeches from the Spanish
Bishops, full of bitter reproaches against the Curia ; and
his conception of codifying the doctrines of the Church
with the avowed intention of irrevocably excluding the
Lutherans was by no means liked by many.
A great debate took place on Jan. 18th, which revealed
to the Legate that probably the majority of the delegates
PROCEDURE AT THE COUNCIL 569
did not favour his proposed course of procedure. Madruzzo,
the eloquent Prince Bishop of Trent, and a Cardinal, made
a long speech, in which he asserted that the Council should
not rashly take for granted that the Lutherans were
irreconcilable. They ought to acknowledge frankly that
the corrupt morals of the mediaeval clergy had done much
to cause dissatisfaction and to justify revolt. Let tliem
therefore assume that these evils for which the Church
was responsible had produced the schism. Let them
invite the Protestants to come among them as brethren.
Let them show to those men, who had no doubt erred in
doctrine, that the Catholic Church was sincerely anxious
to reform the abounding evils in life and morals, and, with
this fraternal bond between them, let them reason amicably
together about the doctrinal differences which now separated
them. The eloquent and large-minded Cardinal condensed
the recommendations in his speech in one sentence : " Cum
corrupti mores ecclesiasticorum dederint occasionem Lutlier-
anis confingendi falsa dogmata, sublata causa, facilius
tolletur effectus ; subdens optimum fore, si protestantes
ipsos amicabiliter et fraterne Uteris invitaremus, ut ipsi
quoque ad synodum venirent, et se etiam reformari
paterentur." ^ We are told that this speech raised great
enthusiasm among the delegates, and that the Legates had
some difficulty in preventing its proposal from being
universally accepted. At the most they were able to
prevent any definite conclusion being come to about tlie
procedure at the close of the sitting. Co'rvini saw that he
could not get his way adopted. He agreed that proposals
for reform and for the codification of doctrine should l)e
discussed simultaneously, his knowledge of theological
nature telling him that if he once got so many divines
engaged in doctrinal discussions two things would surely
follow: their eagerness would make them neglect every-
thing else, and their polemical instincts would carry them
beyond the point where a conciliation of the Protestants
required them to come to a halt. So it happened. The
* (Theiner) Acta genuina ss. cecumenici coiicilii Tridentini^ p. 40.
570 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
Council found itself committed to a codification and
definition of Catholic doctrine. The suggestion of the
Bishop of Feltre (Thomas Campeggio) was adopted, that
the discussion of doctrines and the proposals for reform
should be discussed by two separate Commissions, whose
reports should come before the Synod alternately. The
Legates obtained a large majority for this course, and the
protest of Madruzzo was unavailing.
The decision to attack the question of reform was very
unacceptable to the Pope. He went so far as to ask the
Legates to get it rescinded ; but that was impossible, and
he had to content himself with the assurances of Cervini
that no real harm would come of it.
This important question being settled, the Council
decided upon the details of procedure. The whole Synod
was divided into three divisions or Commissions, to each of
which allotted work was given. Each question was first
of all to be prepared for the section by theologians and
canonists, then discussed in the special Commission to
which it had been entrusted. If approved there, it
was to be brought before a general Congregation of the
whole Synod for discus&ion. If it passed this scrutiny,
it was to be promulgated in a solemn session of the
Council.
§ 3. Restatement of Doctrines.
It ought to be said, before describing the doctrinal
labours of the Council, that the work done at Trent was
not to give Conciliar sanction to the whole mass of medieval
doctrinal tradition. There was a thorough revision of
doctrinal positions in which a great deal of theology which
had been current during the later Middle Ages was verbally
rejected, and the rejection was most apparent in that Scotist
theology which had been popular before the Eeformation,
and which had been most strongly attacked by Luther.
The Scotist theology, with its theological scepticism, was
largely repudiated in name at least — whether its spirit was
RESTATEMENT OF DOCTRINES 571
banished is another question which has to be discussed
later. A great many influences unknown during the later
Middle Ages pressed consciously and unconsciously upon
the divines assembled at Trent and coloured their dog-
matic work. Although the avowed intention of the theo-
logians there was to defeat both Humanism and the
Eeformation, they could not avoid being influenced by both
movements. Humanism had led many of them to study
the earlier Church Fathers, and they could not escape
Augustine in doing so. They were led to him by many
paths. The Dominican theologians had begun, quite
independently of the Eeformation, to study the great
theologian of their Order, and Thomas had led them back
to Augustine. The Eeformation had laid stress on the
doctrines of sin, of justification, and of predestination, and
had therefore awakened a new interest in them and con-
sequently in Augustine. The New Thomism, with August-
inianism behind it, was a feature of the times, and was
the strongest influence at work among the theologians who
assembled at Trent. It could not fail to make their
doctrinal results take a very diflerent form from the
theology which Luther was taught by John Nathin in the
Erfurt convent. Christian Mysticism, too, had its revival,
especially in Spain and in Italy, and among some of the
reconstructed monastic orders. If it had small influence
on the doctrines, it worked for a more spiritual conception
of the Church. What has been called Curialism, the
theory of the omnipotence of the Pope' in all things con-
nected with the Church's Hfe, practice, and beliefs, was also
a potent factor with some of the assembled fathers. But
above all things the theologians who met at Trent were
influenced by the thought and fact of the Lutheran
Eeformation. This is apparent in the order in which
they discussed theological questions, in the subjects they
selected and in those they omitted. All these things
help us to understand how the theology of the Council
of Trent was something peculiar, something by itself, and
different both from what may be vaguely called medieval
572 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
theology and from that of the modern Church of
Eome.^
The Council, in its third session, laid the basis of its
doctrinal work by reaffirming the Niceo-Constantinopolitan
Creed with the filioque clause added, and significantly
called it : Symbolum fidei quo sancta ecclesia Romana
utitur. This done, it was ready to proceed with the
codification and definition of doctrines.
On the 18 th of April 1546, the Commission which
had to do with the preparation of the subject reported, and
the Council proceeded to discuss the sources of theological
knowledge or the Rule of Faith. The influence of the
Eeformation is clearly seen not merely in the priority
assigned to this subject, but also in the statement that the
" purity of the Gospel " is involved in the decision come
to. The opposition to Protestantism was made emphatic
by the Council declaring these four things :
It accepted as canonical all the books contained in the
Alexandrine Canon (the Septuagint), and therefore the
Apocrypha of the Old Testament, and did so heedless of
the fact that the editor of the Vulgate (afterwards pro-
nounced authoritative), Jei'ome, had thought very little of
the Apocrypha. The Reformers, in their desire to go back
to the earliest and purest sources, had pronounced in favour
of the Hebrew Canon ; the Council, in spite of Jerome,
accepted the common mediaeval tradition.
It declared that in addition to the books of Holy
^ Loofs in his LcAtfaden ztim studiwni der Dor/mengeschichte (Halle a. S.
1893) declares that the follo\vii)g teudencies within the Roman Catholic
Church of the sixteenth century have all to be taken into account as in-
fluencing the decisions come to at the Council of Trent : The reorganisation
of the Spanish Church in strict medipeval spirit by the Crown under Isabella
and Ferdinand ; the revival of Thomist theology, especiallyiin the Dominican
Order ; the fostering of mystical piety, especially in new and in reconstructed
Orders ; the ennobling of theology by Humanism, and its influence, direct
and indirect, in leading theologians back to Augustine ; the strengthening
of the Papacy in the rise of Curialism ; and, lastly, the ecclesiastical
interests of temporal sovereigns generally opposed to this Curialism. He
declares that the newly-founded Order of the Jesuits served as a meeting-
place for the first, third, fourth, and fifth of these tendencies (pp. 333-34).
RESTATEMENT OF DOCTRINES 573
Scripture, it " receives with an equal feeling of piety and
reverence the traditions, whether relating to faith or to
morals, dictated either orally by Christ or by the Holy
Spirit, and preserved in continuous succession within the
Catholic Church." ^ The practical effect of this declaration,
something entirely novel, was to assert that there was
within the Church an infallibly correct mode of interpret-
ing Scripture, and to give the ecclesiastical authorities
(whoever they might be) the means of warding off any
Protestant attack based upon Holy Scripture alone. The
Council were careful to avoid stating who were the
guardians of this dogmatic tradition, but in the end it led
by easily traced steps to the declaration of Pope Pius ix. :
lo sono la ti^adizione, and placed a decision of a Pope
speaking ex cathedra on a level with the Word of
God. '
It proclaimed that the Vulgate version contained the
authoritative text of Holy Scripture. This was also new,
and, moreover, in violent opposition to the best usages of the
mediaeval Church. It cast aside as worse than useless the
whole scholarship of the Renaissance both within and out-
side of the mediaeval Church, and, on pretence of consecrat-
ing a'text of Holy Scripture, reduced it to the state of a
mummy, lifeless and unfruitful.^
It asberted that every faithful believer must accept the
sense of Scripture which the Church teaches, that no one
was to oppose the unanimous consensus of the Fathers —
and this without defining what the Church is, or who are
^ "Nee non traditiones ipsas, turn ad fidem, turn ad mores pertinentes,
tanquam vel oretenus a Christo, vel a Spiritu Saucto dictatas, et continua
successione in Ecclesia catholica conservatas, pari pietatis affectu acrever-
entia suscipit et veneratur." The references to the decisions of Trent have
been taken from Denzinger, Unchiridion Symholorum et Dcjinitionmn qua; tie
rebus fidei et moriim a conciliis cecumenids etmmmis FaiUiJicibus emdnarunt
(Wiirzburg, 1900), p. 179.
2 "Statuit et declarat, ut haecipsa vetus et viilgata editio, quae longo
tot sfeculorum usu in ipsa Ecclesia probata est,- in publicis lectionibus,
disputationibus, prsedicationibus pro authentica lialieatur ; et ut nemo
illam rejicere qupvis prietextu audeat vel proesumat" (Denzinger, Enchiridion,
etc. p. 179).
574 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
the Fathr^/s.^ The whole trend of this decision was to place
the authoritative exposition of the Scriptures in the hands
of the Pope, although at the time the Council lacked the
courage to say so.
It must not be supposed that these decisions were
reached without a good deal of discussion. Some members
of the Council would have preferred the Hebrew Canon.
Nacchianti, Bishop of Chioggia, protested against placing
traditions on the same level as Holy Scripture ; ^ some
wished to distinguish between apostolical traditions and
others ; but the final decision of the Council was carried
by a large majority. The most serious conflict of opinion,
however, arose about the clause which declared that the
Vulgate version was the only authoritative one. It was
held that such a decision entailed the prohibition of using
translations of the Scripture in the mother tongue. The
Spanish Bishops, in spite of the fact that translations of the
Scriptures into Spanish had once been commonly used and
their use encouraged, would have had all Bible reading in
the mother tongue prohibited. The Germans protested.
The debate waxed hot. Madruzzo, of Trent, eloquently
declared that to prohibit the translation of the Scriptures
into German would be a public scandal. Were children
not to be taught the Lord's Prayer in a language they
could understand ? A Bull of Pope Paul ii. was cited
against him. He replied that Popes had erred and were
liable to err ; but that the Apostle Paul had not erred, and
that he had commanded the Scriptures to be read by
every one, and that this could not be done unless they
were translated. A compromise was suggested, that each
country should decide for itself whether it would have
translations of the Scriptures or not. In the end, however,
the Vulgate was proclaimed the only authentic Word of God.
^ "Nemo . . . contra eum sensum, quem tenuit et tenet sancta mater
Eoclesia, cujus est judicare de vero sensu et interpretatione ScriptuTaruni
Sanctarum, aut etiam contra unanimem consensum Patrum, ipsam Scripturam
Sacram interpretari audeat" {ihid. p. 180).
2 "Non possum pati synodiim pari pietatis affectu suscipere traditiones
et libros sanctos : hoc enim, ut vere dicam quod seutio, impium est"
RESTATEMENT OF DOCTRINES 575
In the fifth session (June 17th, 1546) and in the sixth
session (Jan. 13th, 1547) the Council attacked the subjects
of Original Sin and Justification. The Eeformation had
challenged the Eoman Church to say whether it had any
spiritual rehgion at all, or was simply an institution
claiming to possess a secret science of salvation through
ceremonies which required little or no spiritual life on the
part of priests or recipients. The challenge had to be met
not merely on account of the Protestants, but because
devout Eomanists had declared that it must be done. The
answer was given in the two doctrines of Original Sin and
Justification, as defined at the Council of Trent. They
both deserve a much more detailed examination than space
permits.
The Legates had felt that the Council as constituted
might come to decisions giving room for Protestant doctrine,
and pled with the Pope to send them more Italian Bishops,
whose votes might counteract the weight of northern
opinion (June 2nd, 1546). They were extremely anxious
about the way in which the Council might deal with those
two doctrines.
The first, the definition of Original Sin, seems to reject
strongly that Pelagianism or Senii-Pelagianism which had
marked the later Scholasticism which Luther had been
taught in the Erfurt convent. ' It appears to rest on and
to express the evangelical thoughts of Augustine. , But a
careful examinaticn shows that it is. full of ambiguities —
intentional loop-holes provided for the - retention of the
Semi-Pelagian modes of thought. Space forbids our going
over them all, but one example may be selected from the
first chapter. It is there said that Adam lost the holiness
and righteousness in which he had been constituted. Why
not created ? The phrase may mean created, and all the
New Thomists at the Council doubtless read it in that
way. By the Pall man" lost what Thomas, following
Augustine, had called increated righteousness. But the
phrase in qua constitutus fuerat could easily be interpreted
to mean that what man did Idse were the superadded dona
576 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
supernaturalia whose loss in no way impaired human
nature ; and, if so interpreted, room is provided for
Pelagianism.^ Again, while the Augustinian doctrine of
the Fall seems to be taught, it is added that by Original
Sin liberum arhitrium is minime extindum virihus licet
attenuatum, which is Semi-Pelagian.^ The whole definition
closes with a statement that it is not to be applied to the
Blessed Virgin, the doctrine about whom has been expressed
in the Constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV. of happy memory.^
The statement of the Doctrine of Justification is a
masterpiece of theological dexterity, and deserves much
more consideration than can be given it. The whole
treatment of the subject was the cause of considerable
anxiety outside the Council. On the one hand, the
Emperor Charles v., who was greatly disappointed at the
course taken by the Council, and saw the chance of
conciliating the Protestants diminishing daily, wished to
defer all discussion ; while the Pope, bent on making it
impossible for the Protestants to return, desired the
Council to define this important doctrine in such a way
that none of the Reformed could possibly accept it. The
Emperor's wishes were speedily overruled ; but it was by
no means easy for the Legates to carry out the desires of
the Pope. There was a great deal of Evangelical doctrine
in the Eoman Church which had to be reckoned with. So
much existed that at one time it had actually been pro-
posed at the Vatican to approve of the first part of the
Augsburg Confession in order to win the Protestants over.
^ " Si qui? non confitetur, primum hominem Adain, cum mandatum Dei
in paradiso fuisset transgressus, statim sanctificationem et justitiam, in qua
constitutus fuerat, amisisse. . . . Anathema sit " (Denzigner, Enchiridion^
etc. p. 180).
2 ' ' Tametsi in eis liberum arbitrium minime extinctum esset, viribus
licet attenuatum et inclinatum " ; in the first paragraph of the decree on
Justification {ibid. p. 182).
^ "Declarat tamen heee ipsa sancta Synodus, non esse suse intentionis
comprehendere in hoc decreto, ubi de peceato originali agitur, beatam et
immaculatam Virginem Mariam, Dei genitricem ; sed observandas constitu-
tiones felicis recordationis Sixti Papaj iv. sub poenis in eis constitutionibus
eontentis, quas innovat" {ihid. p. 182).
RESTATEMENT OF DOCTRINES 577
The day for such proposals was past; but the New
Thoniism was a power in the Church, and perhaps the
strongest theological force at the Council of Trent, and had
to be reckoned with. If the Protestant conception of
Justification be treated merely as a doctrine, — which it is
not, being really an experience deeper and wider .than any
form of words can contain, — if it be stated scholastically,
then it is possible to express it in propositions which do
not perceptibly differ from the doctrine of Justification in
the New Thomist theology. "At the conference at Regens-
burg (Ratisbon) in 1541, Contarini was able to draft a
statement of the doctrine which commended itself to such
opponents as Calvin and Eck.^ Harnack has remarked
that the real difference between the two doctrines appeared
in this, that " just on account of the doctrine of Justifica-
tion the Protestants combated as heretical the itsages of
the Roman Church, while the Augustinian Thomists could
not understand w^hy it should be impossible to unite the
two." 2 But the similarity of statement shows the difficulty
of the Legates in guiding the Council to frame a decree
which w^ould content the Pope. They were able to
accomplish this mainly through the dexterity of the Jesuit
Lainez.
The discussion showed how deeply the division ran.
Some theologians were pre])ared to accept the purely
Lutheran view that Justification was by Faith alone.
They were in a small minority, and were noisily interrupted.
One of them, Thomas de San Felicio, Bishop of La Cava,
and a Neapolitan, came to blows with a Greek Bishop.
The debate then centred round the mediating view of the
doctrine, which Contarini had advocated in his Tractatua
de Justificationc, and which may be said to represent the
position of the New Thomists. It seemed to commend
itself to a majority of the delegates. The leader of the
party was Girolamo Seripando (1493— lj553), since 1530
the General of tlie Augustinian Eremites, the Order to
37
1 Cf. above, pp. 520, 521.
* History of Dogma (English translation), \\\. 67.
4c«
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
which Luther had belonged.^ He distinguished between
an imputed and an inherent righteousness, a distinction
corresponding to that between prevenient and co-operating
grace, and to some extent not unlike that between Justifica-
tion and Sanctification in later Protestant theology. In
the former, the imputed righteousness of Christ, lay the
only hope for man ; inherent righteousness was based upon
the imputed, and was useless without it. The learning
and candour of Seripando were conspicuous ; his pleading
seemed about to carry the Council with him, when Lainez
intervened to save the situation for the strictly papal
party. The Jesuit theologian accepted the distinction
made between imputed and inherent righteousness ; he
even admitted that the former was alone efficacious in
Justification ; but he alleged that in practice at least the j
two kinds of righteousness touched each other, and that
it would be dangerous to practical theology to consider
them as wholly distinct. His clear plausible reasoning had
great effect, and the ambiguities of his address are reflected
in the looseness of the definitions in the decree.
The definition of the doctrine of Justification which
was adopted by the Council is very lengthy. It contains
sixteen chapters followed by thirty-three canons. It
naturally divides into three divisions — chapters i.— ix.
describing what Justification is ; chapters x.-xiii. the
increase of Justification ; and chapters xiv.— xvi. the
restoration of Justification when it is lost. Almost every
chapter includes grave ambiguities.
The first section is the most important. It begins
with statements which are in themselves evangelical. All
men have come under the power of sin, and are unable to
deliver themselves either by their strength of nature or
by the aid of the letter of the law of Moses.^ Our
^ Seripando was made a Cardinal in 1561 by Pope Pius iv., who also
sent him to the Council of Trent in that year as one of his Legates.
2 "Cum omnes homines in prfeviricatione Adse innocentiani perdi dissent
facti immundi . . . ut non modo gentes per vim naturae, sed ne Jiidsei
quill em per ipsam etiam litteram Tegis Moysi, inde liberari aut surgere
posseut" {Denz'mger, E)ichindion, etc. 182).
RESTATEMENT OF DOCTRINES 579
ITcnvenly Father sent His Son and set Him forth as the
propitiator through faith in His blood for our sins.^ It is
then said that all do not accept the benefits of Christ's
death, although He died for all, but only those to whom
the merit of His passion is communicated ; and this state-
ment is followed by a rather confused sentence which
suggests but commits no one to the Augustinian doctrine
of election.2 This is followed up by saying that Justifica-
tion is the translation from that condition in which man is
born into a condition of grace through Jesus Christ our
Saviour; and it is added that this translation, in the
Gospel dispensation, does not happen apart from Baptism
or the tvish to be baptized.^ In spite of some ambiguities,
these first four chapters have quite an Evangelical ring
about them ; but with the fifth a change begins. While
some sentences seem to maintain the Evangelical ideas
previously stated, room is distinctly made for Pelagian
work-righteousness. It is said, for example, that Justifica-
tion is wrought through the gratia 'proiveniens or wcatio in
which adults are called apart from any merit of their
own ; but then it is added that the end of this calling is
that sinners may be disposed, by God's inciting and aiding
grace, to convert themselves in order to their own justification
by freely assenting to and co-operating with the grace of
God.* This was the suggestion of Lainez. The good
disposition into which sinners are to be brought is said to
^ "Hunc proposuit Deus propitiatorem per fidem m sanguine ipsius pro
peccatis nostris " (Denzinger, Enchiridion, etc. p. 183).
-*'lta nisi in Christo renascerentur, nunquam justificarcntur, cunj ea
renascentia per rneritum passionis ejus gratia, qua justi Hunt, illis tribuatur ;
ju'o hoc beneficio Apostolus gratias nos semper agere liortatur Patri, tpii
dignos nos fecit in partem sortis sanctorum in lumine, et eripuit de potestate
tenebrarum, transtulitque in regnum Filii dilectionis suse, in quo habemus
redemptionem et remissionem peccatorum" {ibid. 183).
* "Translatio ab eo statu in quo homo nascitur ... in statura gratiae
et adoptionis filiorum Dei per . . . Jesum Christum, salvatorem nostrum ;
quae quidem translatio post Evangelium promulgatum. sine lavacro regenera-
lionis, aut ejus voto, fieri non potest" {ibid. p. 183).
"* "Ut, qui per peccata a Deo aversi erant, per ejus excitantem ali]ue
adjuvantem gratiaii ad convertendum se ad suam ipsorum ju.sfificatiouein
oiden\ gratia? libere issentiendo et co-operando, disponantur ..."
580 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
consist of several things, of which the first is faith — defined
to be a belief that the contents of the divine revelation
are true. In the two successive chapters faith is declared
to be only the beginning of Justification ; and Justification
itself, in flat contradiction to what had been said previously,
is no longer a translation from one state to another ; it
becomes the actual and gradual conversion of a sinner into
a righteous man. It is scarcely necessary to pursue the
definitions further. It is sufficient to say that the
theologians of Trent do not seem to have the faintest idea
of what the Keformers meant by faith, and never appear to
see that there is such a thing as religious experience.
The second and third sections of the decree treating of
the increase of Justification and of its renewal in the
Sacrament of Penance, were drafted still more emphatically
in an anti-evangelical spirit, though here and there they
show concessions to the Augustinian feeling in the Church.
The result was that the Pope obtained what he wanted, a
definition which made reconciliation with the Protestants
impossible. The New Thomists were able to secure a
sufficient amount of Augustinian theology in the decree to
render Jansenism possible in the future ; while the prevail-
ing Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism foreshadowed its
overthrow by Jesuit theology.
While these theological definitions were being discussed
and framed, the Council also occupied itself with matters of
reform. They began to make regulations about preaching
and catechising, and this led them insensibly to the
question of exemptions from episcopal control. The Popes
had for some centuries been trying to weaken the authority
of the Bishops, by placing the regular clergy or monks
beyond the control of the Bishops within whose diocese
their convents stood, and this exemption had been the
occasion of many ecclesiastical disorders. The discussion
was long and excited. It ended in a compromise.
When the decree on Justification was settled, the
Council, guided by the Legates, proceeded to discuss the
doctrine of the Sacraments, with the intention of still more
SECOND MEETING OF THE COUNCIL 581
thoroughly preventing any doctrinal reconciliation with the
Protestants. This action called forth remonstrances from
the Emperor, whose successes at the time in Germany
were alarming the Pope, and making him anxious to with-
draw the Council from Germany altogether. He sent
orders to the Legates to endeavour to persuade tlic
members at Trent to vote for a transfer to Bologna, where
the papal influence would be stronger, and where it would
be easier to pack the Synod with a pliant Italian majority.
A pretext was found in the appearance of the plague at
Trent; and although a strong minority, headed by
^adruzzo of Trent, opposed the scheme, the majority (33
to 14) decided that they must leave Trent and establish
themselves at the Italian city. The Spanish Bishops,
however, remained at Trent awaiting the Emperor's
orders.
Charles v. had suftered many disappointments from the
Council he had laboured to summon, and this action made
him lose all patience. He ordered the Spanish Bishops not
to leave Trent ; the Diet of Augsburg refused to recognise
the prelates who had gone to Bologna as the General
Council. After much hesitation. Pope Paul m. felt
compelled to suspend the proceedings of the Council at
Bologna (September 17th, 1549). This ended the first
part of the sittings of the Council
§ 4. Second Meeting of the Council.
Pope Paul III. died November 10th, 1549. At the
Conclave which followed, the Cardinal del Monte, tlie
senior Legate of the Council, was chosen Pope, and took the
title of Julius ill. (February 7th, 1550). He and the
Emperor soon came to an agreement that the Council
should return t' Trent. It accordingly reopened there on
May 1st, 1551. The Cardinal Marcello Crescenzio was
appointed sole Legate, and two assistants, the Archbishop
of Siponto and the Bishop of Verona, were entitled Nuncios.
The second meeting of tlie Council did nut promise well
582 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
The Po])e had agreed that something was to be done to
conciliate the Protestants, and that it should be left an
open question whether the preceding decisions of the
Council might not be revised. But before its assembly the
policy of the Pope again ran counter to that of the Emperor,
and the Protestants had ceased to expect much. The
delegates themselves showed little eagerness to come to the
place of meeting. The Council was forced to adjourn, and
it was not until the 1st of September that it began its
work.
The earlier proceedings showed that there was little
hope of conciliatory measures. There was no attempt to
revise these former decisions, and the Council began its
work of codifying doctrine and reformation at the place
where it had dropped it.
During the later months of the first meeting, the
question of the Sacraments had been under discussion, and
so far as the second meeting is concerned it may be said
that the whole of its theological work was confined to this
subject.
Little pains were taken to conciliate the Protestants.
The decisions arrived at pass over in contemptuous silence
all the Protestant contendings. The relations of the
Sacraments to the Word and Promises of God, and to the
faith of the recipient, are not explained. The thirteen
Canons which sum up the doctrine of the Sacraments in
general, and the anathemas with which they conclude, are
the protest of the Council against the whole Protestant
movement.
This did not prevent the Council being confronted with
great difficulties in their definitions — difficulties which arose
from the opposition between the earlier and more Evangelical I
Thomist and the later Scotist and Nominalist theology. It
would almost appear that the fathers of Trent despaired of
harmonising the multitude of Scholastic theories on the
nature of the Sacraments in general. They did not venture
on constructing a decree, but contented themselves for the
most part with merely negative definitions. They declare
SECOND MEETING OF THE COUNCIL 583
that there are seven Sacraments, neither more nor fewer, all
positively instituted by Christ. ./ They sever the intimate
connection between faith and the Sacraments, attributing
to them a secret and mysterious power. They practically
deny the universal priesthood of believers (Can. 10).
Perhaps the most important Canon is the last : " If any
one shall say that the received and approved rites of the
Catholic Church, commonly used in the solemn administra-
tion of the Sacraments, may be contemned, or without sin
omitted at pleasure by the ministrants, or be changed by
any pastor of the churches into other new ones : let him be
anathema " (Can. 1 3). It enables us to see how, while not
going beyond the verbal limits of the definitions of the
Thomist theology, the Council provided room for subsequent
aberrations of doctrine by raising the use and wont of the
Eoman Church to the level of dogma.
In their definitions of the single Sacraments the
Council could and did found on the Dccretum pro Armenis
of the Council of Florence (1439), incorporated in the Bull
Exultate Deo of Pope Eugenius iv. The real substance of
the definition of Baptism is found in that Canon (3), which
declares that " the Eoman Church, which is the mother and
mistress of all Churches, has the true doctrine of the
Sacrament of Baptism." The common practice for the
Bishop to confirm, an historical testimony to the original
position of Bishops as pastors of congregations, is Elevated
to the rank of a dogma. The decree and canons on the
Eucharist are a dexterous dove-tailing of sentences making
a mosaic of differing scholastic theories. One detail only
need concern us. Most of the theologians present wislied
the denial of the cup to the laity to be elevated into a
dogma, and a decree was actually prepared. But the
secular princes and a widespread public opinion made the
theologians hesitate, and the question was settled in a late
meeting (Session xxi., July 16th, 1562) in a dexterously
ambiguous way. It was declared that " from the beginning
of the Christian religion the use of both species has not been
unfrequent," but it was added that no one of tlic laity was
584 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
permitted to demand the cup ex Dei prcecepto, or to believe
that the Church was not acting according to just and
weighty reasons when it was refused, or that the " whole
and entire Christ " was not received " under either species
alone.'* Few statements have been made in such defiance
of history as this decree, with its corresponding canons,
when one and another practice of the mediaeval Church are
said to have existed from the beginning.
The decree on Penance is one of the most carefully
constructed and least ambiguous. It is a real codification
of Scholastic doctrine. On one portion only was there need
for dexterous manipulation, and it received it. The immoral
conception of attrition was verbally abandoned and really
retained. Contrition, which is godly sorrow, is declared to
be necessary ; and attrition is declared to be only a salutary
preparation. But the real distinction thus established is
at once cancelled by calling attrition an imperfect contrition^
by distinguishing between contrition itself and a more per-
fect contrition — contrition perfected by love ; and place is
provided for the reintroduction of the immoral conceptions
of the later Scotist theologians.^
When the theological decrees and canons of the
Council of Trent are read carefully in the light of past
Scholastic controversies and of varying principles at work
in the Eoman Catholic Church of the sixteenth century, it
is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion that while the
older and more Evangelical Thomist theology gained a verbal
recognition, the real victory lay with the Scotist party now
represented by the Jesuits. On one side of its activity, the
general tendency of Scotist theology had been to produce
what was called " theological Scepticism " — a state of mind
which was compelled to dissent intellectually from most of
the great doctrines of the mediaeval Church, and at the
same time to accept them on the external authority of the
Church — to show that there were no really permanent
principles in dogmatic, and that there was need every-
where for reference to a permanent and external source
' Cf. i. 22'jy.
SECOND MEETING OF THE COUNCIL 585
of authority who could be no other than the Roman
Pontiff.
The Curialist position, that the Universal Church was
represented by the Roman Church, and that the Roman
Church was, as it were, condensed in the Pope, was not con-
fined to the sphere of jurisdiction only. It had its theological
side. Scripture, it was held, was to be interpreted accord-
ing to the tradition of the Church, and the Pope alone was
able to determine what that tradition really was. Hence,
the more indefinite theology was, the fewer permanent
principles it contained, the more indispensable became the
papal authority, and the more thoroughly religion could be
identified with a blind unreasoning submission to the
Church identified as the Pope. This had been the thought
of Ignatius Loyola; the training of the mind to such a
state of absolute submission had been the motive in his
Spiritual Exercises; and the Jesuit theologians at the
Council, Lainez and Salmeron, did very much to secure
the practical victory won by Scotist theology, in spite- of
the fact that the phrases of the decrees came from the
theology of their opponents.
The second meeting of the Council of Trent ended on
April 28th, 1552. The Peace of Augsburg (1555)
showed that the Protestants had acquired a separate legal
standing within the Empire, and most people thought that
the work of the Council had been wasted. Things were
as if it had never been in existence. Pope Paul in. died
on March 24th, 1555, and the Conclave elected Cervini, who
took the title of Marcel 1 us ii. The new Pope survived liis
elevation only three weeks. He was succeeded by Cardinal
Caraffti, Paul iv., and the Counter-Reformation began in
earnest.
Paul IV., hater of Spaniards as he was, was the embodi-
ment of the Spanish idea of what a reformation should be.
He believed that the work of reform could be done better
by the Pope himself than by any Council, and he set to
work with the thoroughness which characterised him.
There was to be no tampering witlj Ibc doctrines, usages, or
586 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
institutions of the mediaeval Church. Heresy and Schism
were to be crushed by the Inquisition, and the spread
of new ideas was to be prevented by the strict examina-
tion of all books, and the destruction of those which con-
tained what the Pope conceived to be unwholesome for the
minds or morals of mankind. But the Church needed to
be reformed thoroughly; the lives of the clergy, and
especially of the higher clergy, had to be amended ; and
abuses which had crept into administration had to be set
right.
For some time any real reformation was retarded by
the influence of his nephews, who played on the old Pon-
tiffs hatred of the Spaniards, and easily persuaded him
that his first duty was to expel the Spaniards from the
Italian peninsula. But the evil deeds of these near
kinsmen gradually reached his ears. In an assembly of
the Inquisition, held in 1559, he was told by CaMinal
Pacheco that " reform must begin with iis.'' The old man
retired to his apartments, instituted a searching inquiry
into the conduct of his nephews, and within a month had
deprived them of all their offices and emoluments, and
banished them from Kome. Free from this family embar-
rasment, the Pope prosecuted vigorously his plans for refor-
mation. The secular administration of the States of the
Church was thoroughly purified. A Congregation was
appointed to examine, classify, and remedy ecclesiastical
abuses. Many of the abuses of the Curia were swept
away. The Jesuits taught him, although he had no great
love for the Order, that spiritual services should not be
sold for money. He prohibited taking fees for marriage
dispensations. He was a stern censor of the morals of the
higher clergy. Under his brief rule Eome became respect-
able if not virtuous. He restored some of the privileges
of the Bishops which had been absorbed by the Papacy.
All the while his zeal for purity of doctrine made him
urge on the Inquisition and the Index to use their terrible
powers. He spared no one. Cardinal Morone, one of the
few survivals of the liberal Eoman Catholics, was imprisoned,
THIRD MEETING OF THE COUNCIL 58 T
and the suppression of all liberal ideas was sternly
prosecuted.^
§ 5. Third Meeting of the Council,
Paul IV. died on the 18th of August 1559.- He was
succeeded by Giovanni de' Medici (Dec. 26th, 1559), a
man of a very dift'erent type of character, who took the
title of Pius IV. The new Pope was by training a lawyer
rather than a theologian, and a man skilled in diplomacy.
He recognised, as none of his predecessors had done,
the difficulties which confronted the Church of Rome.
The Lutheran Church had won political recognition in
Germany. Scandinavia and Denmark were hopelessly lost.
England had become Protestant, and Scotland was almost
sure to follow the example of her more powerful neigh-
bour. The Low Countries could not be coerced by Philip
and Alva, More than half of German Switzerland had
declared for the Eeformation. Geneva had become a
Protestant fortress, and Calvin's opinions were gaining
ground all over French Switzerland. France was hopelessly
divided. Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland were alienated
from Rome, and might soon revolt altogether. The Pope
was convinced that a General Council was necessary to
reunite the forces still on the side of the Roman Catholic
Church. He saw that it was vain to expect to do this
without coming to terms with the Romanist sovereigns. It
was the age of autocracy. He pleaded for an alliance of
autocrats to confront and withstand the Protestant revolu-
tion. He tried to persuade the Emperor (now Ferdinand),
Francis ii. of France, and Philip of Spain that the inde}>end-
ent rule of Bishops was one side of the feudalism which
was hostile to monarchy, and that the Pope and the Kings
* He classed Cardinal Pole among heretics ; Victoria Colonna became
suspect because she was "hlia spiritualis et discipula Cardinalis Poli,
hffiretici " ; and the nuns of St. Catherine at Viterbo were noted as "sus-
pectae " from their intimacy with Vittoria (Cartegyio di VitUrria Colonria, pp.
433/. ; Turin, 1889).
588 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
ought to work together. His representations had soma
effect as time went on.
A papal Bull (Nov. 29th, 1560) summoned a Council
at Trent on April 6th, 1561. Five Legates were appointed
to preside, at their head Ercole di Gonzaga, Cardinal of
Mantua. They reached Trent on the 1 6 th of April (1561),
and were received by Ludovico Madruzzo, who had succeeded
his uncle, the Cardinal, in the bishopric. The delegates
came slowly. The first session (xvii^h) was not held till
Jan. 18th, 1562, and was unimportant. The real work
began at the second session (xviii^-^), held on Feb. 26 th
(1562).
The Protestants had been invited to attend, but it
was well known that they would not ; the assembly repre-
sented the Koman Catholic Powers, and them alone. Its
object was not to conciliate the Protestants, but to organise
the Romanist Church. The various Roman Catholic Powers,
however, had different ideas of what ought to be involved
in such a reorganisation.
The Emperor knew that there were many lukewarm
Protestants on the one hand and many disaffected Romanists
on the other. He believed that the former could be won
back and the latter confirmed by some serious modifications
in the usages of the Church. His scheme of reform, set
down in his instructions to his Ambassadors, was very
extensive. It included the permission to give the cup to
the laity, marriage of the priests, mitigation of the pre-
scribed fasts, the use of some of the ecclesiastical revenues
to provide schools for the poor, a revision of the service
books in the sense of purging them of many of their legends,
singing German hymns in public worship, the publication
of a good and simple catechism for the instruction of the
young, a reformation of the cloisters, and a reduction of
the powers of the Roman Pontiff according to the ideas of
the Council of Constance. These reforms, earnestly pressed
by the Emperor in letters, had the support of almost all the
German Roman Catholics.
The French Bishops, headed by the Cardinal Lorraine,
THIRD MEETING OF THE COUNCIL 589
supported the German demands. They were especially
anxious for the granting the cup to the laity, the ad-
ministration of the Sacraments in French, French hymns
sung in public worship, and that the celebration of the
Mass should always be accompanied by instruction and a
sermon. They also pressed for a limitation of the powers
of the Pope, according to the decisions of the Council of
Basel.
t The Spanish Bishops, on the other hand, were thoroughly
opposed to any change in ecclesiastical doctrine or usages.
They did not wish the cup given to the laity ; they abhorred
clerical marriage; they protested against the idea of the
services or any part of them in the mother tongue. Exit
they desired a thorough reformation of the Curia, of the
whole system of dispensations; they wished a limitation
of the powers of the Pope, and to see the Bishops of the
Church restored to their ancient privileges.
France and Germany desired that the Council should
be considered a new Synod ; Spain and the Pope meant it
to be simply a continuation of the former sessions at
Trent.
These difficulties might well have daunted the Pope ;
but the suave diplomatist faced the situation, trusting
mainly to his own abilities to carry matters through to a
successful issue. He knew that he must have command
of the Council, and to that end several resolutions were
passed mainly by the adroit generalship of the Legates.
It was practically, if not formally, resolved that the Synod
should be simply a continuation of that Council which had
''Cgun at Trent in 1545. This got rid at once of a great
deal of difficult doctrinal discussion, and provided that all
dogmas had to be discussed on the lines laid down in
previous sessions. It was decreed that no proxies should
be allowed. This enabled the Pope to keep up a constant
majority of Italian Bishops, who outnumbered those of all
other nations put together. By a clever ruse the Council
was induced to vote that the papal Legates alone should
have the privilege of proposing resolutions to the Council,
590 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
This made it impossible to bring before the Council any
matter to which the Pope had objection.
The Pope knew well, however, that it mattered little
what conclusions the Council came to, if its decisions were
to be repudiated by the Roman Catholic Powers. He
therefore carried on elaborate negotiations with the
Emperor and the Kings of Spain and France while the
Council was sitting, and arranged with them the wording
of the decrees to be adopted. His tactics, which never
varied during the whole period of the Council, and which
were finally crowned with success, were simple. He
maintained at all costs a numerical majority in the Synod
ready to vote as he directed. This was done by systematic
drafts of Italian Bishops to Trent. Many of the poorer
ones were subsidised through Cardinal Simonetta, whose
business it was to see that the mechanical majority was
kept up, and to direct it how to vote. His Legates had
the exclusive right of proposing resolutions ; couriers took
the proposals drafted by the various Congregations to Eome,
and the Pope revised them there before they were laid
before the whole Council to be voted upon ; spies informed
him what were the objections of the French, Spanish, or
German Bishops, and the Pope was diligent to bring all
manner of influences to bear upon them to incHne them to
his mind ; if he failed, he prevented the proposals being
laid before the Council until he had consulted and bargained
'with the monarchs through special agents. The papal
post-bags, containing proposed decrees or canons, went the
round of the European Courts before they were presented
to the Council, and the Bishops spoke and voted upon what'
had been already settled behind their backs and without
their knowledge.
In spite of all this dexterous manipulation, the Council,
composed of so many jarring elements, did not work very
smoothly. The papal diplomacy sometimes increased the
disturbances. Men chafed under the thought that they
were only puppets, and that the matters they had been
called together to discuss were already irrevocably settled.
THIRD MEETING OF THE COUNCIL 591
** Better never to have come here at all," said a Spanish
Bishop, "than to be reduced to mere spectators." Few
ecclesiastical assemblies have seen stormier scenes than
took place duiing these later sittings of the Council of
Trent.
In the end, the papal diplomacy prevailed. His
conciliatory manner helped Pius through difficulties in
which another would have failed. No man was readier
to give way in things which he did not consider essential,
and what he promised he scrupulously performed. The
success of the last meeting of the Council was due to
bargaining and dexterous persuasion. When the critical
point arrived, and it seemed as if the Council must fall to
pieces, his agents, Morone and Peter Canisius, the great
German Jesuit, won Ferdinand over to the Pope's side.
Similar persuasive diplomacy secured the influence of
the Cardinal of Lorraine.* Even Philip of Spain was
brought to see that the Spanish Bishops were asking
too much.
It must also be remembered that while Pius iv. refused
to tolerate any loss of papal rights or privileges, he consented
to and did his best to carry out numberless salutary
reforms ; and that the Council of Trent not only re-
organised, but greatly purified the Eoman Church. Almost
all that was crood in the reformation wrought, by his
predecessor Paul iv. was made part of the Tridentine
regulations.
I The special matter in dispute between the Pope and
the great majority of non-Italian Bishops concerned the
relations in which the Bishops of the Catholic Church
I stood to the Bishop of Rome, whom all acknowledged as
'their head. The Spanish, French, and German Bishops
were strongly opposed to that doctrine of papal supremacy
which had been assiduously taught by the canonists of the
Eoman Curia for at least two centuries, and which was
called curialisvi. Curialisra taught that the l*ope was
lord of the Church in the sense that all the clergy were
his r^ervants, and that Bisliops in particular were mere
592 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
assistants whom he had appointed for the ]iurpose ol
oversight to act as his vicars. Whatever powers of
jurisdiction they possessed came from him, and from him
alone. The opposite conception, that insisted on at Trent
by the northern and Spanish Bishops, that maintained at
the great Councils of Constance and Basel, was that every
Bishop had his power directly from Christ, and that the
Pope, while he was the representative of the unity of the
Church, and therefore to be recognised as its head, was
only a primus inter pares, and subject to the episcopate as
a whole in Council assembled. The question kept cropping
up in almost all the discussions in the Council which
turned on reform. It began as early as the fifth session
(June 17th, 1546) and went on intermittently; but it
positively raged in the later sessions.
The question was raised on its practical side. One of
the standing abuses in the mediaeval Church was the non-
residence of Bishops. The Council was passionately called
upon by the Spanish and northern Bishops to declare that
residence was a necessary thing, and unanimously responded
that it was. Their function was the oversioht of their
dioceses, and this could only be done when they were
resident. But how was this to be enforced ? To compel
the Bishops to reside within their dioceses would depopu-
late the Court of Eome, and make it very much poorer.
Bishops from every country in Europe were attached to
the Koman Court, and their stipends, drawn from the
countries in which their Sees lay, were spent in Eome, and
aided the magnificence of the papal entourage. The
reformers felt that a theoretical question lay behind the
practical, and insisted that the oversight and therefore the
residence of Bishops was de jure divino and not merely de
lege ecclesiastica — something enjoined by God, and therefore
beyond alteration by the Pope. Behind this lay the
thought, first introduced by Cyprian, that every Bishop
was within his congregation or diocese the Vicar of Christ,
and in the last resort responsible to Him alone. Thus the
old conciliar conception, maintained at Constance and at
THIRD MEETING OF THE COUNCIL 59
o
Basel, faced the curial at Trent ; and both were too
powerful to give way entirely. In spite of his Italian
majority, the Pope could not get a majority for a direct
negative denying the de jure divino theory. At the final
vote, sixty-six fathers declared for the de jure divino
theory, while seventy-one either rejected it altogether or-
voted for remitting it to the decision of the Pope. The
Pope dared not make use of the liberty of decision thus
accorded to him by a majority of five. If he did he would
then be left to face the European Eoman Catholic Courts
of Germany, France, and Spain — all of whom supported
the conciliar view. Thus the theoretical question was left
undecided at Trent, but the papal diplomacy prevailed to
the extent of creating a bias in favour of curialist ideas,
which -left the Pope in a stronger position as regards the
episcopate than any other General Council had ever
placed him in.
The prominence given to the Homan {i.e. the papal)
Church throughout the decisions of the Council, beginning
with the way in which the Constantinopolitan (Nicene)
Creed was affirmed ; ^ the insertion of the phrase His own
Vicar upon earth ; ^ the injunction that Patriarchs,
Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and all others who of
right and custom ought to be i)resent at a provincial
council . . . promise and profess true obedience to the
Sovereign Roman Pontiff;^ the 10th clause in the Professio
Fidei Tridentince: "I acknowledge the holy Catholic
Apostolic Roman Church for the mother and mistress of
all Churches; and I promise and swear true ol^edience to
the Bishop of Rome, successor to St. Peter, Prince of
Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ " ; the way in which
the Council at its last session (Dec. 4th, 1563) left
entirely in the Pope's hands the confirmation of its decrees
and the measures to be used for" carrying them out ; and
* "Symbolum fidei quo sancta Jiomana Ecclesia iftitur."
" "Through the mercy of God and the provident care oi Hisffwn Vicar
ujym earth." Session vi. de reform, c. 1.
• Session xxv. de reform, c. 2.
;8**
594 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
above all its calm acquiescence in the Bull Benedictus Deus
(Jan. 24th, 1564), in which Pope Pius iv. reserved the
exposition of its decrees to himself ^ — all testify to the
triumph of curialist ideas at the Council of Trent. The
Eoman Catholic Church had become, in a sense never
before universally accepted, the " Pope's House."
This Council, so eagerly demanded, so greatly pro-
tracted, twice dissolved, buffeted by storms in the pohtical
world, exposed, even in its later sessions, to many a danger,
ended in the general contentment of the Koman Catholic
peoples. When the prelates met together for the last
time on the 4th of December 1563, ancient opponents
embraced, and traces of tears were seen in many of the old
eyes.
It had done three things for the Roman Catholic
Church. It had provided a compact system of doctrine,
stript of many of the vagaries of Scholasticism, and yet
opposed to Protestant teaching. Eomanism had an
intellectual basis of its own to rest on. It had rebuilt the
hierarchy on what may be called almost a new foundation,
and made it symmetrical. It had laid down a scheme of
reformation which, if only carried out by succeeding
Pontiffs, would free the Church from many of the crying
evils which had given such strength to the Protestant
movement. It had insisted on and made provisions
for an educated clergy — perhaps the greatest need
of the Roman Church in the middle of the sixteenth
century.
All this was largely due to the man who ruled in Rome.
Pope Pius IV., sprung from the shrewd Italian middle-class,
' * "We by apostolic authority forbid all persons . . . that they presume
without our authority to publish in any form any commentaries, glosses,
annotations, scholia, or any kind of interpretation whatsoever touching the
decrees of the said Council ; or to settle anything in regard thereof under
any plea whatsoever. . . . But if anything therein shall seem to any one
to have been expressed and ordained obscurely . . . and to stand in need of
interpretation or decision, let him go up to the place which the Lord hath
chosen, to wit, to the Apostolic See, the mistress of all the faithful, whose
authority the Holy Synod also has reverently acknowledged."
THIRD MEETING OF THE COUNCIL 595
caring little for theology, by no means distinguished for
piety, had seen what the Church needed, and by deft
diplomacy had obtained it. A stronger man would have
snapped the threads which tied all parties together ; one
more zealous would have lacked his infinite patience ; a
deeply pious man could scarcely have employed the means
he continually used. He was magnificently assisted by
the new Company of Jesus. No theologians had so much
influence at Trent as Lainez and Salmeron ; the Council
would have broken down altogether but for the aid
given by Canisius to Morone in his negotiations with the
Emperor.
Pius IV. was not slow to fulfil the promises he had
made to sovereigns and Council. The Breviary and the
MissaFwere revised, as Ferdinand had requested. Ecclesi-
astical music was purified. Exertions were made to
establish colleges and theological seminaries. But a
sterner Pontiff was needed to guide the battle against
the growing Protestantism. He was found in the next,
Pope Pius V.
"" The influence of Cardinal Borromeo, the pious nephew
of Pius IV., was powerful in the Conclave, and was exerted
to procure the election of Michele Ghislieri, Cardinal of
Alessandria, who took the name of Pius v. The new
Pontiff had entered a Dominican convent w^hen f9urteen
years of age, and had given himself up heart and soul to
the strictest life his Order enjoined. He. had all the zeal
for strict orthodoxy which characterised the Dominiciins,
an asceticism which never spared himself, and a detestation
of the immoralities and irregularities -vvhich too often
dissraced the lives of ecclesiastics. He carried the habits
of the cloister with him into the Vatican.. He never
missed attendance at the prescribed services of the Church,
and in his devotion there was no trace of hyixjcrisy. He
was a Pope to lead the new Romanism, with its intense
hatred of heresy, its determination to reform the moral life,
and its contempt for the Renaissance and all its works.
Philip II. of Spain sent a special letter of congratulatimi Vi
596 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
Cardinal Borromeo to thank him for his efforts in the
Conclave.
The new Pontiff believed, heart and soul, in repression.
He meant to fight the Reformation by the Inquisition
and the Index ; and these two instruments were unsparingly
used.
CHAPTER VI.
THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX.*
§ 1. The Inquisition in Spain.
The idea conveyed in the term Inquisition is the punish-
ment of spiritual or ecclesiastical offences by physical
pains 'and penalties. It was no new conception in the
Christian Church. It had existed from the days of
Constantine. So far as the mediieval Church is concerned,
historians roughly distinguish between the Episcopal, the
Papal, and the Spanish Inquisitions. In the half-barbarous
Church of the early Middle Ages, in which a curious give-
and-take policy existed between the secular and civil
powers, a seemingly consistent understanding was arrived
at between Church and State, wliich may be summed up
by saying that it was recognised to be the Church's duty
to point out heretics, and that of the State to punish them
— the Church being represented by the Bishops. This
episcopal Inquisition took many forms, and was never a
very effective instrument in the suppression of heresy.
In 1203, Pope Innocent iii., alarmed at the spread of
heresies through southern France and northern Italy,
published a Bull censuring the indifference of the Bishops,
appointing the Abbot of Citeaux his delegate in matters
of heresy, and giving him power to judge and punish
^ Llorente, Histoire critique de V Inquisition d'Espaqne (Paris, 1818) ; Lea,
A Histoid of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (London, 1888) ; Reusclj,
Der hidex der Verhoteiur Biicher (Bonu, 1885) ; Lea, The Spanish Inquisi-
tion (London, 1906) ; Synionds, Renaissance in Italy, The Catholic Reaction
(London, 1886).
598 THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX
heresy. This was the beginning of the Inquisition as a
separate institution. It was an act of papal centralisation,
and a distinct encroachment on the episcopal jurisdiction.
The papal Inquisition, thus started, took root. It did not
displace the old episcopal Inquisition ; the two existed side
by side ; but the " Apostolic Tribunal for the suppression
of heresy " was by far the more effective weapon. It was
usually managed by the Dominican and Franciscan
Orders.
The Spanish Inquisition took its rise in the closing
decades of the fifteenth century. The Popes had frequently
desired to see the papal Inquisition introduced into Spain,
and leave had always been refused by the sovereigns,
jealous of papal interference. Pope Sixtus iv. had gone
the length of granting to his Legate, Nicolo Franco, " full
inquisitorial powers to prosecute and punish false Christians
who after baptism persisted in the observance of Jewish
rites/' but Isabella and Ferdinand did not allow him to
exercise them. But the power and wealth of the Con-
versos — Jews who had nominally embraced Christianity —
had made them detested by the Spanish people, and a large
section of the clergy were clamouring for their overthrow.
Thomas de Torquemada, the Queen's confessor, eagerly
pressed the Inquisition upon his royal penitent, and at last
the sovereigns applied to the Pope for a Bull to enable
them to establish in Spain an Inquisition of a peculiar
kind. It was to differ from the ordinary papal Inquisition
in this, that it was to be strictly under royal control, that
the sovereigns were to have the appointment of the
Inquisitors, and that the tines and confiscations were to
flow into the royal treasury. The Bull was granted
(November 1st, 1478), but the sovereigns hesitated to use
the rights it conveyed. After a year's delay, two royal
Inquisitors were appointed (September 17th, 1480), and
the first auto-da-fi, at which six persons were burnt, took
place on February 6th, 1481. The succeeding years saw
various modifications in the constitution of the Holy Office;
but at last it was organised with a council, presided over by
THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN 599
an Inquisitor-General, Thomas de Torquemada. He was
a man of pitiless zeal, stern, relentless, and autocratic ; and
he stamped his nature on the institution over which he
presided. The Holy Office was permitted to frame its own
rules. ♦ The permission made it practically independent,
while all the resources of the State were placed at its
command. When an Inquisitor came to assume his
functions, the officials took an oath to assist him to
exterminate all whom he might designate as heretics, and
to observe, and compel the observance by all, of the
decretals Ad abolendum, Excommunicamus, TJt officium
Inquisitionis, and Ut Inquisitionis negotium — the papal
legislation of the thirteenth century, which made the State
wholly subservient to the Holy Office, and rendered
incapable of official position any one suspect in the faith
or who favoured heretics. Besides this, all the population
was assembled to listen to a sermon by the Inquisitor, after
which all were required to swear on the cross and the
Gospels to help the Holy Office, and not to impede it in any
manner or on any pretext. The methods of work and pro-
cedure were also taken from the papal Inquisition. The
Inquisitors were furnished with letters patent. They
travelled from town to town, attended by guards and notaries
public. Their expenses were defrayed by .taxes laid on the
towns and districts through which they passed. Spies and
informers, guaranteed State protection, brought forward
their information. The Court was opened ; witnesses were
examined ; and the accused were acquitted or found guilty.
The sentence was pronounced ; the secular assessor gave a
formal assent; and the accused was handed over to the
civil authorities for punishment. When Torquemada
reorganised the Spanish Inquisition, a series of rules were
framed for its procedure which .enforced secrecy to the
extent of depriving the accused of any rational means of
defence ; which elaborated the judicial method so as to leave
no loop-hole even for those who expressed a wish to recant ;
and which multiplied the charges under which suspected
heretics, even after death, might be treated as impenitent
600 THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX
and their property confiscated. The Spanish Inquisition
differed from the papal in its close relation to the civil
authorities, its terrible secrecy, its relentlessness, and its
exclusion of Bishops from even a nominal participation in
its work. Thus organised, it became the most terrible of
curses to unhappy Spain. During the first hundred and
thirty-nine years of its existence the country was depopulated
to the extent of three millions of people. It had become
strong enough to overawe the monarchy, to insult the
episcopate, and to defy the Pope. The number of its victims
can only be conjectured. Llorente has calculated that
during the eighteen years of Torquemada's presidency
114,000 persons were accused, of whom 10,220 were burnt
alive, and 97,000 were condemned to perpetual imprison-
ment or to public penitence. This was the terrible
instrument used relentlessly to bring the Spanish people
into conformity with the Spanish Eeformation, and to
crush the growing Protestantism of the Low Countries.
It was extended to Corsica and Sardinia ; but the people
of Naples and Sicily successfully resisted its introduction
when proposed by the Spanish Viceroys.
§ 2. The Inquisition in Italy,
Cardinal Caraffa (afterwards Pope Paul IV.), the relent-
less enemy of the Reformation, seeing the success of this
Spanish Inquisition in its extermination of heretics, induced
Pope Paul HI. to consent to a reorganisation of the papal
Inquisition in Italy on the Spanish model, in 1542. The
Curia had become alarmed at the progress of the Reforma-
tion in Italy. They had received information that small
Protestant communities had been formed in several of the
Italian towns, and that heresy was spreading in an alarm-
ing fashion. Caraffa declared that " the whole of Italy
was infected with the Lutheran heresy, which had been
extensively embraced both by statesmen and ecclesiastics."
Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuits highly approved of the
suggestion, and they were all-powerful with the Cardinal
THE INQUISITION IN ITALY 601
Borromeo, the pious and trusted nephew of the Pope. In
1542 the Congregation of the Holy Olhce was founded at
Home, and six Cardinals, among them Cardinals Caratfa and
Toledo, were named Inquisitors-General, with authority on
hoth sides of the Alps to try all cases of heresy, to
apprehend and imprison suspected persons, and to" appoint
inferior tribunals with the same or more limited powers.
The intention was to introduce into this remodelled papal
Inquisition most of the features which marked the
thoroughness of the Spanish institution. But the jealousy
of the Popes prevented the Holy Olfice from exercising
the same independent action in Italy as in Spain. The
new institution began its work at once within the States
of the Church, and was introduced after some negotiations
into most of the Italian principalities. Venice refused,
until it was arranged that the Holy Office there should be
strictly subject to the civil authorities.
Although modelled on the Spauish institution, the work
of the Holy Office in Italy never exhibited the same
murderous activity; nor was tliere the same need. The
Italians have never showed the stern consistency in faith
which " characterised the Spaniards. It was generally
found sufficient to strike at the leaders in order to cause
the relapse of their followers. Still the- records of the
Office and contemporary witnesses recount continuous trials
and burnings in Rome and in other, cities. In Venice,
death by drowning was substituted for- burning. The
victims were placed on a board supported by two gondolas ;
the boats were rowed apart, and the unfortunate martyrs
perished in the waters. The Protestant congregations
which had been formed in Bologna, Faeuza, Ferrara, Lucca,
Modena, Naples, Siena, Venice, and Viceuza were dispersed
with little or no bloodshed. A- colony of Waldenses,
settled near the town of Cosenza in the north -central part
of Calabria, were made of sterner stuff. ' Ni^tliing would
induce them to relapse, and they were exterminated by
sword, by hurling from the summits of cliMs, by prolonged
confinement in deadly prisons, at the stake, in the mines,
602 THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX
in the Spanish galleys. One hundred elderly women were
first tortured and then slaughtered at Montalto. The
survivors among the women and children were sold into
slavery. Such was the work of the Counter-Eeformation
in Italy, and the measures to which it owed much of its
success.
§ 3. The Index,
Leaders of the Counter-Eeformation in Italy like
Popes Paul IV. and Pius v. were determined on much more
than the dispersion of Protestant communities and the
banishment or martyrdom of the missionaries of Evangelical
thought. They resolved to destroy what they rightly
enough believed to be its seed and seed-bed — the cultiva-
tion of independent thinking and of impartial scholarship.
They wished to extirpate all traces of the Eenaissance. In
the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries, Italy
had been " the workshop of ideas," the officina scientiarum
for the rest of Europe. The Inquisition, in Italy as in Spain,
attacked the Academies, the schools of learning, above all
the libraries in which the learning of the past was stored,
and the printing-presses which disseminated ideas day by
day. They had the example of Torquemada before them,
who had burnt six thousand volumes at Salamanca in
1490 on pretence that they taught sorcery.
It was no new thing to order the burning of heretical
writings. This had been done continuously throughout
the Middle Ages. The episcopal Inquisition, the Uni-
versities, the papal Inquisition, had all endeavoured to
discover and destroy writings which they deemed to be
dangerous to the dogmas of the Church. After the
invention of printing such a method of slaying ideas 'was
not so easy* but the ecclesiastical authorities had tried
their best. The celebrated edict of the Archbishop of
Mainz of 1486, prompted by the number of Bibles printed
in the vernacular, and trying to establish a censorship of
books, may be taken as an example.'^
* It is to be found in Gudenus, Codex Diplomaticus, iv. 469.
THE INDEX 603
Pope Sixtus IV. in 1547 had ordered the University
of Kohl to see tliat no books (lihri, tradatus aut scripturcc
qualescunque) were printed without previous licence,, and
had empowered the authorities to inflict penalties on the
printers, purchasers, and readers of all unlicensed books.
Alexander vi. had sent the same order to the Archbishops
of Koln, Mainz, Trier, and Magdeburg (1501). In a
Constitution of Leo x., approved by the Lateran Council (»f
1515, it was declared that no book could be printed in
Kome which had not been expressly sanctioned by the
Master of the Palace, and in other lands by the Bishop of
the diocese or the Inquisitor of the district ; and this had
been homologated by the Council of Trent.^ From its
reorganisation in 1543 the papal Inquisition in Rome had
undertaken this work of censorsliip.
Outside the States of the Church the suppression of
books and the requirement of ecclesiastical licence could
only be carried out through the co-operation of the secular
authorities ; and they naturally demanded some uniforniity
in the books condemned. This led to lists of prohibited
books being drawn up — as at Louvain (1546 and 1550),
at Koln (1549), and by the Sorbonne, who managed the
Inquisition for the north of France (1544 and 1551).
Pope Paul IV. drafted the first, papal Index in 1550. It
was very drastic, and its very severity prevented its
success.* It was this Index Lihrorinn Prohihitoruin which
1 "Wishing also to impose a restraint . . . ujton ]>rinters . . . \\\\o
print without licence of ecclesiastical superiors, the said hooks of Sarred
Scripture, and the annotations and expositions upon them of all persons
indifferently . . . (this Synod) ordains and decrees, that, henceforth, tlic
Sacred Scripture, and especially the aforesaid old and Vulgate edition, l.e
printed in the most correct manner possible ; and that it shall not l)e lawful
for anyone to print, or cause to be printed, any hooks irhaievcr on sacred
matters, without the name of the author ; nor to sell them" in future ot even
to keep them by them, unless they shall have been first c^-amincd aiid
approved by ike ordinary ; under pain of anathema and fine imi.osed in a
canon of the last Lateran Council " (Sess. iv.)
2 The original Index of Pope Paul iv. containe'd a list of no less than
si\ty-one printers, and prohibited the reading of any look printed by thrm.
He afterwards withdrew this clause. But his Index gives a long catalogue
of authors aU of whose writings are prohibited. It is, with one dis-
604 THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX
was discussed by the Commission appointed at the Council
of Trent.i
The Commission drafted a set of ten rules to be
followed in constructing a list of prohibited books, and
left the actual formation of the Index to the Pope. This
new Index (the Tridentine Index) was pubhshed by Pope
Pius IV. in 1564. His successor, Pius v., appointed a
special Commission of Cardinals to deal with the question
of prohibited books. It was called the Congregation of
the Index, and although distinct from the Inquisition,
worked along with it. Its work was done very thoroughly.
Italian scholarship was slain so far as the peninsula was
concerned. The scholarship of Spain and Portugal was
also destroyed. Learning had to take shelter north of the
Alps and the Pyrenees. So thoroughly was the work of
prohibition carried out, so many difficulties beset even
Eoman Catholic authors, that Paleario called the whole
system " a dagger drawn from the scabbard to assassinate
all men of letters " ; Paul Sarpi dubbed it " the finest secret
which has ever been discovered for applying religion to
the purpose of making men idiots " ; and Latini, a champion
of the Papacy, declared it to be a " peril which threatened
the very existence of books."
The rules for framing the Index, drafted by the com-
mission of the Council of Trent, are curious reading. The
writings of noted Eeformers, of Zwingli, Luther, and
especially of Calvin, were absolutely prohibited. The
Vulgate was to be the only authorised version of the
Scriptures, and the only one to be quoted as an inspired
text. Scholars might, by special permission of their
ecclesiastical superiors, possess another version, but they
were never to quote it as authoritative. Versions in the
vernacular were never to be quoted. Bible Dictionaries,
tinguished exception, a mere list of names ; but it contains : " Desiderius
Erasmus Roterodamus cum universis coraiucntariis, annotationibus, scholiis,
dialogis, epistolis, censuris, versionibus, libris et scriptis suis, etiam si nil
penitus contra religionem vol de religione contiiieant."
^ Session xviii,— Decree aneut the; clioice of books ; Session xxv. — Anent
the Index of books, the Catechism, Breviary, .'and Missal.
THE INDEX 605
Concordances, books on controversial theology, had to paas
the strictest examination at the hands of the censors
before publication. The censors were directed to examine
with the utmost care not merely the text, but all
summaries, notes, indexes, prefaces, and dedicatious, search-
ing for any heretical phrases or for sentences which the
unwary might be tempted to think heretical, for all
criticisms on any ecclesiastical action, for any satire on the
clergy or on religious rites. All such passages were to be
expunged.
North of the Alps the Index had small effect. It
was impotent in lands where the Reformation was firmly
established ; and in France, papal Germany, and north
Italy a class of daring coljwrteurs carried the prohibited
tracts-. Bibles, and religious literature throughout the lands.
The tremendous powers of suppression set forth in the
Tridentine rules could not avoid doing infinite mischief to
thought and scholarship, even if placed in the hands of
qualified and well-intentioned men. But the censors were
neither capable nor high-minded. Scholars refused the
odious task. Commentaries on the Fathers were read by
men who knew little Latin, less Greek, and no Hebrew.
They were discovered extorting money from unfortunate
authors, levying blackmail on booksellers, listening to the
whispers of jealous rivals.
So effectually was learning slain in Italy, that when
the Popes at the close of the sixteenth century strove to
revive the scholarship of the Church and to gather together
at Rome a band of men able to defend the Papacy with
their pens, these scholars had to work under immense
disabilities. Baronius wrote his Annals, &ud Latini edited
the Latin Fathers, both of them ignorant of Greek, and
both harassed by the censorship.
Some of the more distinguished leaders of the Counter-
Reformation saw the dangers which lurked in this system
of pure suppression. The great German Jesuit, Canisius,
who did more than any other man for the maintenance
and revival of the Roman Catholic Chunli iu Germany,
606 THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX
pointed out that destruction was powerless to effect
permanent good. The people must have books, and the
Church ought to supply them. He laboured somewhat
Buccecsfully to that end.
§ 4. The Suciety of Jesus and the Cottnter- Reformation.
Neither the Inquisition nor the Index account for
the Counter-Reformation. Repression might stamp out
Reformers in southern Europe ; but faith, enthusiasm, un-
selfish and self-denying work were needed to enable the
Roman Church to assume the offensive. These were
supplied to a large extent by the devoted followers of
Ignatius Loyola.
Roman Catholicism reached its ebb during the
pontificate of Pius iv. It stood everywhere on the
defensive, seeing one stronghold after another pass into the
hands of a victorious Protestantism. Pius v., his successor,
was the first fighting Pope of the new Roman Catholicism.
He had behind him the reorganisation effected by the
Council of Trent ; the Roman Catholic revival of mediaeval
piety of which Carlo Borromeo, Philip Xeri, and Francis
de Sales were distinguished types ; the Inquisition and
Congregation of the Index ; and, above all, the Company
of Jesus. Romanism under his leadership boldly assumed
the offensive.
In 1564 it seemed as if aU Germany might become
Protestant. The States which still acknowledged the Papacy
were honeycombed with Protestant communities. Bavaria,
the Rhine Provinces, the Duchy of Austria itself, were,
according to contemporary accounts, more than half-Pro-
testant. Nearly all the seats of learning were Protestant.
The Romanist Universities of Vienna and Ingolstadt were
almost deserted by students. Under the skilful and
enthusiastic leadership of Peter Canisius, the Jesuits were
mainly instrumental in changing this state of things.
They entered Bavaria and Austria. They appeared there
as the heralds and givers of education, and U>ok possession
SOCIETY OF JESUS AND COUNTER-REFORMATION G07
of the rising generation. They established their schools in
all the principal centres of population. They were "oofl
teachers ; they produced school-books of a modern type ;
the catechism written by Canisius himself was used in all
their schools (it transplanted into Komanism the Lutheran
system of catechising); they charged no fees; they soon
had the instruction of the Roman Catholic children in their
hands. The astonished people of town and country dis-
tricts began to see pilgrimages of boys and girls, conducted
like modern Sunday-school treiits, led by the good fathers,
to visit famous churches, shrines, holy crosses, miraculous
wells, etc. The parents were induced to visit the teachers ;
visits led to the confessional, and the confessional to the
directorate. Then followed the discipline of the Spiritual
Exercises, usually shortened to suit the capacities of the
penitents. Whole districts were led back to the con-
fessional— the parents following the children.
The higher education was not neglected. Jesuit
colleges founded at Vienna and Ingolstadt peopled the
decaying universities with students, and gave them, new
life. Student associations, on the model of that founded
by Canisius at Koln, were formeil, and were atliliated lo
the "Company of Jesus. Pilgrimages of students wended
their way to famous shrines ; talented young men sub-
mitted their souls to the direction of the Jesuit fathers,
and shared in the hypnotic trance given by the course of
the Spiritual Exercises. A generation of ardent souls was
trained for the active service of the Roman Church, and
vowed to combat Protestantism to the death.
The Company had another, not less important, field
of work. The Peace of Augsburg had left the management
of the religion of town or principality in the hands of the
ruling secular authority. The maxim, Cujus rcijio ejus
religio, placed the religious convictions of the i^pulation of
many districts at the mercy of one man. Many Komanist
Princes had no wish to persecute, still less to see their
principalities depopulated by banishment. Some of them
had given guarantees for freedom of conscience and limited
608 THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX
rights of worship to their Protestant subjects. The Jesuits
set themselves to change this condition of things. They
could be charming confessors and still more delightful
directors for the obedient sons and daughters of the
Papacy. They were invited to take charge of the souls of
many of the Princes and especially of the Princesses of
Germany. They set themselves to charm, to command,
and, lastly, to threaten their penitents. Toleration of
Protestants they represented to be the unpardonable sin.
They succeeded in many cases in inducing Eomanist rulers
to withdraw the protection they had hitherto accorded to
their Protestant subjects, who, if they stood firm in their
faith, had to leave their homes and seek refuge within a
Protestant district.
Thus openly and stealthily the wave of Eomanist
reaction rolled northwards over Germany, and district after
district was won back for the Papacy. This first period
of the Counter-Eeformation may be said to end with the
sixteenth century ; the second, which included the Thirty
Years' War, lies beyond our limit.
The savage struggle in France, culminating in the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew, did not belong to the New
Eoman Catholicism, and lay outside of what may be called
the Counter-Eeformation proper. The force of this new
aggressive movement was first felt in the formation of the
Holy League, which had for its object to prevent Henry of
Navarre from ascending the throne of France. The League
was the symbol in France of this Counter-Eeformation.
The Jesuits never attained a preponderating influence in
that country until the days of Marie de Medici ; but they
were the restless and ruthless organisers of the Holy
League. The Jesuit fathers, Auger, Henri Saumier, and,
above all, Claude Matthieu, called the Courrier de la
Ligue, worked energetically on its behalf. The Company
issued tracts from their printing-presses asserting the
inalienable rights of the people to govern and therefore to
choose their rulers. They taught that while God had
given spiritual power into the hands of one man, the Pope,
SOCIETY OF JESUS AND COUNTER-REFORMATION 609
He had bestowed the secular power on the many. Kings,
they asserted, do not reign by any divine right of hereditary
succession, but by the will of the people and of the Pojie.
Hence all Eomanist France was justified in setting; aside
the King of Navarre and putting in his place the Cardinal
of Bourbon, his uncle.
The arguments they laid before the English people
were based on principles altogether different, even contra-
dictory. There they extolled hereditary and legitimate
succession. Elizabeth was illegitimate, and Mary of
Scotland had divine rights to the throne of England. It
is needless to relate the efforts made by the leaders of the
Counter-Reformation to bring England back to the Papacy
— the College at Douai, the English College at Home, both
erected to train missionaries for service against the
heretical Queen ; the mission of the Jesuits, Parsons and
Campion. The student of history can scarcely fail to note
one thing, — that the sailing of the Spanish Armada marks
the flood-tide of the first period of the Counter-Reforma-
tion. After the ruin of the great fleet the first wave of
the reaction seems to have spent itself. The League failed
in France, and Henry I v. secured the rights of his Protestant
subjects in the Edict of Nantes. The Hollanders emerged
triumphant from their long war of liberation. Even in
Germany the defeat of the Armada dates in a rough way
the end of the impetus of the Romanist reaction. The
German Protestants assumed the offensive again, and an
energetic and aggressive Calvinism redeemed the halting
character of the Lutheran Reformation.
Mr. Symonds, in his l)rilliant sketches of the forces at
work to make the Romanist reaction, thinks that the })art
of the Jesuits in the Counter-Reformation has rather been
exaggerated than insufficiently recognised. . " Without the
ecclesiastical reform which originated in the Tridentino
Council ; without the gold and sword of Spain ; without the
stakes and prisons of the Inquisition ; -without the warfare
against thought conducted by the Congregation of the
Index, — the Jesuits alone could not liave masterfully
610 THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX
governed the Catholic revival."^ This is perhaps true;
but what would all these things have come to apart from
the activity of the Company of Jesus ? They were little
better than the mechanism to which the enthusiasm and
the indomitable work bred from enthusiasm gave the soul.
Stern, relentless, savage repression can do much. It can
make a desert and call it peace ; but it cannot requicken
with renewed life. The gentle piety of Carlo Borromeo,
the sweet languishing tenderness of Francis de Sales, the
revived mediaeval mysticism discernible in the Eomanist
reaction, had neither the religious depth nor the endurance
needed for the times. Ignatius breathed the Spanish
spirit, at once wildly visionary and intensely practical,
into his Company, and they transfused it throughout the
Church of the Counter-Eeformation — the exalted devotion,
the tenacity which no reverses could wear out, and the
unquenchable religious hope. They ruled it as the soul
governs the body.
It was the time of Spanish domination. Spain grasped
the New World and hoped to subdue the Old. Her
soldiers were the best in Europe. They dreamed of
nothing but conquests. The Jesuits brought the Spanisli
spirit into the Church. Others might scheme, and wish,
and wonder. They worked. They reaped the harvest
which hard and Kinremitting labour gathers in every field.
It was not for nothing that Adrian and other papal
statesmen dubbed Luther another Mahomet ; the word
kindled in every Spanish breast the memory of their
centuries of war with the Moslems and its victorious
ending. If the gold and sword of Spain were at the
service of the Counter-Eeformation, it was the Spanish
spirit incarnate in the Company of Jesus that made such
dry bones live.
We must remember that in the first period of the
Eomanist reaction we have to do with the Jesuits of the
sixteenth century, and must banish from our minds the history
of the Order in the two centuries that follow. Its worst
^ Symonds, The, Renaissance in Italy : The Catholic Reaction^ i. 301.
SOCIETY OF JESUS AND COUNTER-REFORMATION 611
side had scarcely appeared. Its theory of rrohaliilism, hy
which directors were trained to traiiRforni all deadly sins,
even murder, adultery, and theft, into venial otlences, and
casuistry became a method for the entire guidance of souls,
belonged to a later period. It was not till the seventeentli
century that the forgiveness of sins had been reduced by
them to a highly refined art. Their shameless neglect of
religion and morality, when the political interests of the
Church and of the Society seemed to require it, was also
later. What the depressed Romanists of the sixteenth
century saw was a body of men whom no difficulties daunted,
who spent themselves in training boys and girls and in
animating them with religious principles ; who persuaded
boys and youths to attend daily Mass, to resort to montldy
confession, to study the articles of their faith ; who elevated
that' obedience, which for generations they had been taught
was due to the earthly head of the Church, into a sublime
religious principle.
All this the Romanism of the Counter-Reformation
owed to those three unknown men, who crept into Rome
through the Porto del Popolo during Easter 1538 to beg
Pope Paul III. to permit them and their companions to
enroll themselves in a new Order for the defence of the
faith.
It is true that men can never get rid of their personal
responsibility in spiritual things, but multitudes will always
attempt to cast the burden upon others. In all such souls
the spirit of the Counter-Reformation lives and moves and
has its being, and they are sustained; consciously or un-
consciously, by that principle of blind ol)edience which its
preachers taught. It is enough for us to remember that
no weakened sense of i)ers()nal responsibility and no
amount of superstitious practice can utterly quench the
conscience that seeks its God, or can liinder that upward
glance to the Father in heaven which carries with it a
living faith.
INDEX
Aare, The, Swiss river, boundary
between the Provinces of Mainz
and Besan(;on, 23.
Abjuration, Act of, declaration of
Dutch Independence, 267.
Abjuration of Papal Supremacy by
the Church of Enfjland, 332.
Act of Restraint of Appeals (Eng-
land), 329.
Act abolishing Diversity of opinion
(England), 348.
Act of Uniformity (Edward vi.). The
First, 357, 360.
Act of Uniformity (Edward vi.), The
Second, 363.
Act de heretico combnrendo, 374.
Act of Uniformity (Elizabeth), 390/. ,
395, 401/., 403, 419.
Act of Supremacy (Elizabeth), 390/.,
^93/., 397, 401, 408/.
Acts completing England's secession
from Rome, 331.
Acts of Henry viii. revived by Eliza-
beth, 393 and n.
Adda, The (Val Tellina), 50.
Adrian vi., his ideas of the need
of reformation, 496 ; a Dutch
Ximeues, 497 ; an Inquisitor, 497 ;
in Rome, 497 ; tries to reform the
Curia, 498 ; the martyr of the
Spanish Reformation, 499 ; failure
in life, success after death, 500 ;
494, 610.
Advertisements of Archbishop Parker,
406, 418 71.
Advoyer, The, the chief Magistrate
of Bern, 41 n.
Agen, Reformed church at, 166.
Agrarian troubles in England, 345,
359, 387.
Agrippa, Cornelius, 64 ti.
Aij^rle, a district of the Pays de Vaud,
67 , Farel at, 67, 69.
61
Albftrt of Brandenburg, 3.
Alcala, College at, 491/ , 537.
Alciat, Andre, lecturer in Law, 95.
Aleantler, Ilieronymius, Papal Legat«
at Worms, in the Netherlands,
229.
Alen(;on, The Duke of, Francis, till
1574, then Duke of Anjou, 179 n.,
203.
Alexander, of Aries, Peter, 358.
Alva, Feniinando Alvarez de Toledo,
Duke of, 193, 25.V-, '^^^^ 262.
Amboise, Town of, 146, 310 ; Con-
spiracy of, 176 ; Edict of, 192.
Ammonius, Andreas, Latin secretary
to Henry viii., 316.
Amsterdam, 236, 239.
Anabaptists, The, outside the Peace
of Augsburg, 5 ; in Zurich, 35 ;
in the Netherlands, 224 /f.; their
origin, 235, 423, 432/ ; places of
refuge, 238, 451 ; attempts to gain
a town in the Netherlands, 238/. ;
old mood of describing, 430/.,
431 n. ; connection vyith the so<ial
revolt, 432 ; with the Brrthrrm,
482; their organisation, 435 ; their
hymns, 435, 449/ ; their strong
individuality, 437 ; views on
Passive ResiiUanu, 438 ; their
evangelists, 439 ; reimdiiited a
State Church, 442; their " »ei>a.
ration" from the world,. 443, 461 ;
persecutions, 236/, 445 ; in Swit-
zerland, 445/. ; in Munstt-r, 459/ ;
polygamy among, 463/ ; their
• views on Marriage, 461.
Andelot, Francis, de, brother of
Admiral Coligny, 172, 194.
Anduze, Huguenot stronghold, 201.
Angeles, Francisco de las, and Luther,
495.
Aug* rs, Reformed church at, 166.
614
INDEX
Anhalt becomes Calvinist, 3.
Anna Reinhard and Zwingli, 36.
Annates {Eug\-Mii\), 328, 331.
Anne of Cleves, 342, 347, 349.
Anti-Trinitarians, 422, 424/.
Antoine de Bonrbon, titular King of
Navarre, 20, 172, 175, 178, 181,
186, 192. See Bonrbon,
Antwerp, 234, 2.54/.
Apology, The, of William of Orange,
267.
Apostles, The Twelve (nickname),
252.
Apostolic Tribunal (Inquisition),
The, 598.
Appenzell (Swiss Canton), 22, 46,
49.
Aquila, Bishop of, Ambassador of
Philip II., 386.
Archeteles (treatise by Zwingli), 33.
Areopagitica, The, 13.
Armada, Destruction of the Spanish,
212.
Arran, the Earl of, 281, 283, 298 w.
Arthur, Prince of Wales, married to
Catharine of Aragon, 322.
Articles of Geneva, \Obff., 124.
Articles, The Ten, 333 f.
Articles, The Six, 348/., 355, 358.
Articles, The Forty -two, 363, 411.
Articles, The Thirty -eight, 414/.
Articles, The Thirty-7iine, 363, 411^.,
415, 418.
Articles of the order and government
of the Church, The, 417.
Articles, Tlte Twenty ' one (Ana-
baptist), 459, 465.
Articles, The Twelve (The Apostles'
Creed), 518.
Arundel, the Constitutionsof Thomas,
337.
Assembly of Notables (France),
177.
Attrition and Contrition, as defined
at the Council of Trent, 584.
Aul)enas, Huguenot stronghold, 201.
Auhigu}', Reformed church at, 166.
Augsburg, Peace of, Elizabeth's desire
to take advantage of, 397, 405 ti.,
408, 414.
Augsburg Confession, 124, 341, 397,
415, 576.
Augsburg Interitn, 567 ; 20.
Ausberger, Jacob, Reformer of Miihl-
hausen, 43,
Aventuriers, Les, in France, 144.
Aytta, Vigilius van, member of the
Council of State for the Nether-
lands, 243.
Babylonian Captivity of the Church
of Christ, 334, 494.
Baden (Switzerland), Diet at, 47.
Bale, John, 318.
Baud subscrivit by the Lords, 289.
Baptism, Ceremony of, according to
the Reformed rite, 69 ; first in
stance in Geneva, 83 ; Aiiabiipti.st
mode of administering, 435 ; mode
in Miinster, 461.
Baptism, Doctrine of, defined at the
Council of Trent, 581.
Barcelona, Ladies of, Ignatius'
earliest disciples, 533, 561.
Barlaymont, Baron de (Netherlands),
243, 250, 255.
Barnes, Dr. Robert (England), 18,
340, 349.
Barricades, the day of (France), 211.
Barry, Godfrey de, Seigneur de la
Renaudie (France), 175.
Basel, Bishopric of, 23, 64.
Basel, Town of, the Reformation in,
38 ; accepts Calvinism, 60 ; regu-
lation of morals in, 109 ; 22, 25,
122.
Bastile, The, used as a prison for
Protestants, 164.
Bauny, qiii tollit peccata mundi per
definitionem, 556.
Bavaria, 48 ; Anabaptists in, 449.
Bearnese, The, Henry iv. of France,
218.
Beatce, Spanish Mystics, 530.
Beaton, David, Archbishop of St.
Andrews, Cardinal, 282/, 345 ?i.
Beatus, Rhenanus, Humanist, 18 ?t.
Beda, Noel, leader of the Romanist
party in the University of Paris,
94, 535.
Beggars, The, 250/. See fVild-
Beggars, Sea-Beggars.
Bckantones des globens und lebenn der
gemein Criste zu Monster, 464.
Benedictines, Reformation among
the, 509.
Bentheim Confession, in.
Ber, Hans, Anabaptist evangelist,
439.
Bern, The Reformation in, 40 ; The
Ten Theses of, 42, 45/., 103;
protects Swiss Protestants, 45, 63 ;
seeks to evangelise Western Swit-
zerland. 63, 66, 103/ ; Liturgy of,
in use in French Switzerland, 69,
117, 118/. ; demands a Public
Disputation at Lausanne, 70 ;
Synod at, 73 ; protects the Evan-
gelicals of Geneva, 79/. ; conquers
INDEX
615
the Pays de Vaud, 89 ; regulation
of morals in, 109 ; conininnding
position in Western Switzerland,
116; Consistory of, 117.//".; inter-
cedes witii Geneva on Calvin's
behalf, 121/. ; 22, 48, 113, 129.
Bernard, Jacques, minister at Geneva,
131 71.
Berquin, Louis, a French Lutheran,
18, 143.
Besan(;on, Archiepiscopal Province
of, 23.
Beze, Theodore de (Beza), 95, 155,
313 ; atPoissy, 186/f.
Bible, The English, 335, 337/., 389.
Biel or Bienne (Swiss Canton), 46;
becomes Calvinist, 60.
Bishops' Book, The, 10, 319, 336.
Blaarer (Blauer), Ambrose, 43, 47.
Blandrata, Giorgio, Anti-Trinitarian,
426.
Blast . . . against the tnomtrous
Regiment of Women, 292, 296.
Bldurock (Brother Jorg), 446/.
Blois, town of, 146, 166.
Bloody Tribunal, The, 255.
Boabdilla, Nicholas, Jesuit, 537, 557.
Bockelson, Jan (Jan of Leyden),
arrived at Miinster, 459 ; leader in
Miinster, 463/. ; introduced poly-
gamy, 465/
Bocquet, Christopher, a Dominican
preacher in Geneva, 75 ; called a
Lutheran preacher, 75 n.
Boekbinder, Bartholomaeus, disciple
of Jan Matthys, 459.
Boleyn, Anne, 324, 331.
Bolsec, Jerome (Geneva), 130.
Bonner, Edmund, Bishop of London,
369, 374/., 380/, 389.
Book of Common Order, The (Scot-
land), 306.
B<nk of Communion, The (England),
Book of Discipline, The First (Scot-
land), 307. , ., . , o
Books, Index of Prohibited. See
Borgia, Francis, Duke of Candia, a
Jesuit, 556.
Borromean League (Switzerland), oO.
Borromeo, Carlo, Cardinal, 60, .59.-).
Bourbon, Antoine de (1518-1.')6'2)
Duke of Vendome, and through
his wife, Jeanne d'Albret^^ titular
King of Navarre, 20, 172, 17o,
178, 181, 186, 192. ^ , .
Lmds de, brother of Antoine,
Prince of Conde (1530-1509),
Bourbon :
n)arried (1) Eleanore de Roye, (2)
Franvoise d'Orleans, 172, 175,
178/, 187, 190/
Charlex de, brother of Antoine
(1523-1590), Cardinal de Bourlwn,
chosen King by the League as
Chiirles X., 209, 216, 212/
Henry, son of Antoine and
Jeanne d'Albret, King of Navarro
and King Henry iv. of France
(1163-1610), recognised as leader
of the Huguenots, 194 ; married
to Marguerite de Valois, 197 ;
becomes heir to the French throne,
206 ; declared by the Pope in-
caj)able of succeeding, 208 ; at
Tours with Henry ill., 214 ; suc-
ceeds aa Henry iv., 216 ; his
Declaration, 217; becomes a
Roman Catholic, 219/ ; grants
the Edict of Nantes, 221.
Henry de (1552-1588), son of
Louis of Cond^ and Eleanore de
Koye, 195, 204, 208.
AiUoinette de (1494-1583), aunt
of Antoine de Bourbon, married
Claude, Duke of Guise, the mother
of the Guises, 190.
Bourg, Antoine du, the Chancellor,
146 ; the martyr, 160, 17.0, 174./.
Bourges, Calvin at, 95 ; church at.
166 ; 249.
Breda, 249.
Hiederode, Henry, Viscount, 249/
Bremen becomes Calvinist, 3.
Bremen Conseiis^is, 4 n.
Bres, Guido de, drafted the Be/gic
Cuvfession, 272.
Brethren, The, 432/, 434, 440, 44.').
Brethren, of the Common Lot, The,
226, 228.
Brethren and Sitters of the Free
S/'irit,- The, 441.
Bri<;onnet, Guillaiime, Bish«>p «>f
Meaux. 11, 141 and n.
Brile (Brielo taken by the Sea-
Beggars, 260.
Broet, Paul, the Jesuit, 587.
Brooks, James, Bishop of Gloueoter,
378, 380.
Briino, Giordano, 423.
Bueer, Martin, Reformer of Stra.ss-
burg, 43, 73, 149, 358, .^07, 519.
Buchanan, George, 281, 533 and »..
556. -
Bude, Guillauine (Budrens), 12, 95.
Buenzli Gregory, teacher of Zwingli,
616
INDEX
Bullinger, Henry, successor to
Zwingli in Zurich, on ecclesiastical
excommunication, 111 ; iuHuence
in England, 360, 364, 402 and n.,
437 ; 60.
Burgundy. See Charles the Bold.
Busche, Hermann von dem, of Mar-
burg, 457.
Cachi, Jean, Rom. Cath. in Geneva, 86.
Caffard, 80.
Cahiers, list of grievances presented
to the States-General, 182, 185.
Calvin (Cauvin), Jean, "atrocious
mysteries of," In., 415 ; doctrine
of the Holy Supper, 58#., 412/. ;
on substance a.nd presence, 59, 412 ;
preachers trained by, 71 ; youth
and education, 92^', ; at the Col-
leges de la Marche and Montaigu,
93 ; at the College Fortet, 95 ; at
Orleans and Bourges, 95 ; conver-
sion, 95, 97 ; edition of Seneca's
De dementia, 12, 96 ; knowledge
of the Classics and of Patristic, 96,
104, 109 ; joined the Protestant
community in Paris, 97 ; writes
the Discourse on Christian Philo-
sophy, delivered by Nicholas Cop
before the University of Paris, 98 ;
in Basel, 99 ; in Geneva with
Farel, 102^. ; at the Disputation
at Lausanne, 103 ; aimed at restor-
ing the ecclesiastical usages of the
first three centuries, 109 ; his idea
of ecclesiastical discipline, 108 ff. ;
believed that tbe secular power
should enforce ecclesiastical sen-
tences, 110 ; his views of ecclesi-
astical discipline not adopted by
Geneva, 112 ; his Catechisms, 113,
306 ; his Confession sworn to by the
Genevese, 115 ; opposition to, in
Geneva, 115 - 124 ; accused of
heresy, 116 ; and the ceremonies of
Bern, 118^. ; at the Synod of
Lausanne, 118/. ; banished from
Geneva, 74 n., 120 ; at the Synod
of Zurich, 122 ; signs the Augs-
burg Confession, 124 ; settles at
Strassburg, 124 ; asked to return
-o Geneva, 125/ ; returns, 127 ;
work in Geneva, provides a trained
ministry, 132 ; plans for education,
133 ; influence on the French
Protestant Church, 153 and n.,
158 ; fond of children, 154 ; as a
writer of French prose, 155 and n. ;
a democrat, 155/ ; value of his
theology for the Reformation, 156 ;
influence on the organisation of the
French Church, 164 ; discourages
rebellion in France, 175, writes
against iconoclasm, 183, 191 ;
Kenan and Michelet on, 159 ; in-
fluence on the Scottish Church,
305 ; at the Begensburg Conference,
523/ ; 8/., 12, 16, 27, 138, 147/,
305, 514, 557, 577.
Cambridge, 17, 276, 320.
Campeggio, Thomas, Bishop of Feltre,
a Cardinal, in England, 323^. ;
proposed that the Princess Mary
should marry her half-brother, the
Duke of Richmond, 323 ; at the
Council of Trent, 570.
Canisius, Peter, a Jesuit, 557 Jf., 591,
595, 605/
Canon Law in the Elizabethan Church,
417/
Canus, Alexandre, Reformed preacher
in Geneva, 79.
Cany, Madame de, 158.
Capistrano, John of, a revival preacher
in the Abruzzi, 502.
Capito, Wolfgang, 38, 43, 64 w., 453,
456.
Capucins, a reformation of the Fran-
ciscans, 507/
Caraff'a, Giovanni Pietro, Cardinal
and later Pope Paul iv., member
of the Oratory of Divine Love, 505 ;
the Theatines, 509/ ; character
and training, 515 ; an Inquisitor,
601 ; his conduct as Pope, 585/ ;
510, 545.
Carlyle, Thomas, on the Thirty
Years' War, 2.
Caroli, Pierre, accuses Calvin of
heresy, 116.
Carvajal, Juan de, Cardinal, 497.
Cassel, Confession of, 3, 4 7i.
Castellio, Sebastian, 130.
Catechism, The Racovian, 473, 477.
Catechism of the Brethren, The, 433.
Catechisms of the Reformed Church,
the Heidelberg, 3, 4 w. , 306 ;
Calvin's, 113, 306 ; Craig's, 306.
Catharine of Aragon, 321^., 824,
330, 342, 388.
Catherine de' Medici, wife of Henry
II. of France, begins to reign, 178 ;
her children, 179 r?.. ; and ladies*
side - saddle, 180 n. ; at Poissy,
186jf. ; leader of the Romanist
party in France, 192 ; matrimonial
policy, 196 ; dies, 214 ; 173, 177,
180, 195, 211, 313,
INDEX
617
Cos communes and eas privilegiis,
162.
Cauvin, Gerard, father of Calvin,
92/. ; 95.
Cecil, Sir William, afterwards Lord
Biirgliley, 19, 292, 295, 297/.,
311/., 386/., 396.
Ceremonies of Bern y The, 118/
Cervini, Marcello, Cardinal de Santa
Croce, Legate at the Council of
Trent, 566, 568/
Chablais, District of, 117.
Chambery, 65.
Ghambre Ardente, The, 162, 169,290.
Chandieu, Antoine de, minister at
Paris, 167.
Chapuis, Jean, Romanist in Geneva,
86.
Chapuys, Eustace, Ambassador of
Charles v. in England, 330, 369.
Charles v., Emperor of Germany,
disapproved of the Bern Disputa-
tion, 41 ; how he inherited the
Netherlands, 225 ; consolidates the
Netherlands, 226/ ; establishes
the Inquisition there, 229 ; in-
creasing severity towards Protest-
ants, 231 ; Lutherans among his
family, 233 ; abdicates at Brussels,
240 ; and Philip ii., 240/ ; per-
suaded that Protestants and
Romanists may be re-united, 518,
523, 567; 225, 327, 358, 368/.,
371, 377, 496/., 581.
Charles ix., King of France, 178,
186, 196, 198, 203/
"Charles x.," the League King of
France. See Bourhoii.
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy,
22/, 26, 225.
Chateaubriand, Edict of, 161/, 169,
296.
Chatelet, The Grand and the Petit,
prisons in Paris, 164.
Christian Civic League (Protestant),
48, 51.
Christian Philosophy, Discourse on,
98.
Christian Union, The (Romanist), 48.
Chrisliance Eeligionis Jmtitutio. See
Institutio.
Church, Calvin's Doctrine of the, 7,
110, 129. .
Church, Doctrine of the, among the
Anabaptists, 445.
Church, Doctrine of the, among the
Socinians, 480/
Church, Doctrine of the, at the Re-
gensburg Conference, 521/
Classis, ecclesiastical court in Dutch
Church, 271.
Clement, Jacques, assassinates Henry
III., 215/
Clement vii. See Popes.
Clergy, dissolute lives at Geneva,
90 n. ; disliked in England, 319,
326.
Codure, Jean, The Jesuit, 537.
Cognac, a Huguenot stronghold, 191/'.
Colleges in Paris, de la Marclie, 93 ;
de Ste Barbe, 98, 533 and n. ; df.
Montaigu, 94/, 533; Fortet, 95;
de Navarre, 97 n.
Colleges founded in Spain by
Ximines, 491.
Colleges, French, seed-beds of the
Reformation, 151.
Colet, Dean, 319, 334.
Coligny, Gaspard de, Admiral of
France, at the Asuemhly of Not-
ables, ni ; at the States-General,
182; at Poissy, 186; in La
Rochelle, 194/'. ; attempted as-
sassination of, 197 ; murdered by
Guise, 199 ; 172, 184, 191, 196.
Colloquy, an ecrlcsiastical court in
the French Protestant Church,
168.
Colloquy at Marburg, 50.
Colloquy at Poissy, 20, 186/'
Colonna, Vittoria, 505/, .'.08, 545,
559, 587 n.
Colporteurs, French Prote.sta.nt, 152.
Commentary oii, the Psalms, Calvin's,
97, 101.
Comirmnism. among the Anabaptists,
438, 457, 461/
Como, Lake' of, 50.
Com^jany of Jesus, The,^ the begin-
nings of the, 546, 548/ ; its
constitution, 550/. 551 and n. ;
power in.the hands of tlie (Jeiicral,
552/ ; limitations to his power,
553; rapi<i spn-ad of the Or-lor,
563 : and the Council of Tnnt,
595 ; ami the Coiinter-Refonnation,
606; and education. 607.
Compromise, 27i« (Netherlands), 249.
Complulcusian Polyglot, Thf, 492.
Concicrgerie, Huguenot Prison in
Paris, 164.
Concordat, The Spanish, of 1482,
491.
Conference at Westminster, 20, 400/
Confes.sion.Augsburg.l, 341, 415, 576.
Confcs.sionsof the Reform k1 Churches,
3, 4 u., 6 ;j. ; Consensus Tigurinus,
60 ; Confession of Geneva, 114 ;
618
INDEX
Confession of Waldevses of the
DiLrance, 149 ; the Bdyic Confes-
sion, '212f. ; the Scots' Cxufession,
300, 302/. ; the Confession of the
French Church, 167/. ; Hclcctic
Confession (Second), 413.
Congregatton, The (in the Scottisli
Reformation Church), 289, 290,
299/
Congregation, Tiie (in Western Swit-
zerland), 105 n.
Congregation of the Holy Office, The
(Inquisition), 601.
Congregation of the Index, Tlie, 604/.
Consiliuin . . . de emendenda ecclesia,
510.
Consilium . . . super reformatione
sa7ictce Romance Ecclesice, 511.
Consistorial ecclesiastical organisa-
tion, 4, 7.
Consistory, of Bern, 117, 122 ; of
Geneva, 128/ ; in the French
Church, 165 /". ; in the Dutch
Church, 270/.
Constance, Bishop of, 30/., 33, 34,
41, 47 ; bishopric of, 23 ; City of,
47/ ; Lake of, 48.
Consulta, the confidential advisers of
the Regent of the Netherlands,
243/. _
Contarini, Casparo, Senator of Venice
and Cardinal, Member of the
Oratory of Divine Love, 505 ;
character and training, 513 ; aiid
Calvin, 514 ; sent as Legate to
Germany, 516/. ; at the Regens-
burg Conference, 519/. ; returns
to Italy, 524.
Continental Divines in England, 358
and 71.
Convocation (England), 327, 329/,
355, 363/, 390, 411, 416, 418.
Cop, Nicholas, 12, 95, 98, 145.
Cope, 403/ n., 406 and ?i., 407.
Coraut, Elie, the blind preacher of
Geneva, 74 ?i., 119 and n., 120.
Cordier, Mathurin, teacher of Calvin,
93 and n., 94, 154.
Cortese, Gregorio, Abbot of San
Giorgio Maggiore, 505, 509.
Council General of the Union of
Catholics (France), 213.
Council of Sens (France), 144.
Council of Tumults, or the Bloody
Tribunal (Netherlands), 255.
Coutras, Battle of, 209.
Covenants in Scottish Church History,
288/, 299.
Ccx, Dr., Bishop of Ely, 390, 402 ?4.
Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of
Canterbury, trial and inartyrdoin,
378 ff. ; recant al ions of, 380 ; 8,
31 8i 329/, 338, 349, 371, 379.
Craw (Crawar), Paul, in Scotland, 277.
Crescentio, Mai'cello, Cardinal, sole
Legate at the second meeting of
the Council of Trent, 581.
Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex,
332, 343, 347, 348.
Curia, The, 30, 495, 498, 503, 511,
517, 586.
Curialism, at the Council of Trent, 571,
585, 591 ; its triumph there, 593.
Cybo, Caterina, Princess of Canierino,
506, 508.
Dalbiac, Charles, French Protestant
minister, 181.
Damasus, Pope, 130.
Danes, Pierre, "royal lecturer" in
Paris, 96.
Daniel, Francis, correspondent of
Calvin, 97 n.
Danube, River, 25.
Dathenus, Peter, metrical version of
the Psalms in Dutch, 252.
Dauphine, 39 w., 74.
Daventer, full of Anabaptists, 237/.
Davidis, Francis, Anti - Trinitarian,
429.
Declaration of Brenun, Th^, 3.
Declaration of the Principal Articles
of Beligion (England), 411.
Decretals, The, 78.
Decretum pro Armenis, used at the
Council of Trent, 583.
Defensor Pads, The, of Marsiglio of
Padua, 434.
Delft, Town of, 264.
Democracy and autocracy (Knox and
Mary), 313.
Denck, Hans, Humanist and Ana-
baptists, 424, 435/, 442.
Dendermonde, 255.
Dentiere, Marie, Avife of Froment,
74 ?i.
Device, The (England), 396.
Diane de Poitiers, 151, 173, 296.
Dieppe, John Knox at, 291.
Diet, The Swiss, at Luzern, 32 ; at
Baden, 47.
Dilemburg, The Synod of, 4 n.
Discipline de I' excommunication, 106.
Discipline, ecclesiastical, 108/., 305;
opposition to, in Geneva, 115 ; how
exercised in Geneva, 129 ; to be
exercised through secular authority,
8/, 111/, 489.
INDEX
619
Discipline eccUsiastique dcs ^glises
reforviees de France, 168, 305.
Discipline, First Book of (Scotland),
301, 304/.
Disputation, Public, at Zurich, 34/. ;
at Basel, 39 ; at Bern, 40, 68 ; at
Geneva, 85/'., 88; at Lausanne,
103 ; at Zurich on Baptism, 445/. ;
atMiinster, 454 ; on Baptism, 457 ;
the Leipzig, 495.
Divara, wife of Jan Matthys, 467,
469.
Divorce, The (Henry viii.), 324,
330/., 340.
Dizennier, office in Geneva, 115.
Dogmatic Tradition and the Inner
Light, 423.
Dome, John, bookseller in Oxford
(1520), 320.
Dufour, Louis, citizen of Geneva sent
to persuade Calvin to return, 125.
Dundee, 17, 279, 293.
Dykes in the Netherlands, 245, 263.
Easter Day Communion in England,
398/
Ecclesiastical organisation, in Geneva,
128, 132 ; in Fiance, 164/ ; in
the Netherlands, 270/. ; in Scot-
land, 307/ ; among the Ana-
baptists, 435.
Eck, Johann, the antagonist of
Luther. See Meyer.
Economic changes in England, 345/ ;
359, 387.
Edicts, French, concerning tlie Re-
formation, of Fonfainrblcau, 147 ;
of Chateaubriand, 161/., 169, 296 ;
oiCompiegne, 163; o{ liamorantin,
177; of. Amboise, 192/.; of Saint-
Germaitis, 195 ; of Beauliev, 204 ;
ofBergerac, 206 ; of jVeniours, 208 ;
of Nantes, 19, 221/
Edinburgh, 293.
Edinburgh, University of, 307.
Edward vi. of England, 20, 367/ ;
370, 389.
J^glisi'. pla/iUee and cglisc dressee, 165.
Egmont, Lamoral, Count of, 243,
247/, 254/, 258.
Egmout, Nicolas van, an Inquisitor,
230.
Eidgenots of Geneva, 62.
Einsiedeln, 28, 30.
Elders in the Scottish Church,
appointed by the Congregation,
290.
Eleanore de Roye, wife of Louis of
Coude, 172, 184.
Elizabeth, Queen of England, threat-
ened excommunication. In., 414/;
seires Spanish treasure shijts, 259 •
and Knox's Blast, 292, 296 ; dis.
likes Calvin's theology, 296 ; care-
fully watched during the reign
of Mary, 369 ; her death recom-
mended by Charles v., 371 ; suc-
ceeds to the crown, 385 ; declares
herselfa Protestant, 386/ ; looked
on as a bastard and a heretic by
the Romanist powers, 387 ; threat-
ened witii the fate of the King of
Navarre, 388, 414 ; first Proclama-
tion, 388 ; exhibits her Protcsbiut-
ism to her ]>eople, 389 ; ditliculties
of lier government in the alterati^ni
of Jieligiou, 390 ; her tirst Parlia-
ment, 391 ; shelters herself under
the Peace of Augsburg, 397,
405 71., 414 ; communicates in both
"kinds," 399 and ?i. ; 406, 408,
413, 415, 418, 420.
Emdcn, meeting of the Netherlands
Protestants nt, 271.
Emdcn Catechisih, An.
Episcopal government in Switzer-
land, 23.
Episcnpus Unirrrsalis, 332.
Epistola: obscuroruin rirornm, 317.
Erasmians, the Spanish, 492.-
Erasmus, and the Helormed Churches,
9/, 152 ; on Indulgences, 16 ; 25,
27/, 30, 96, 152, 226, 230, 316,
320, 334, 337, 353, 478, 4S2, 513.
Erasmus circle at Basel, 436.
Eroiitians, 123, 129.
Esradron twlant de la Jlcine, 203,
309.
Esch, .Tohann, martyr in the Nether-
lands, 224, 230.
F.ste, Cardinal Hippolito de, 188.
Estienne, Robert, Parisian printer,
93, 148. '
Excommunication. Sec Discipline.
Eo'coTumuni cation, among tlie Ana-
baptists, 443.
Exercitia Spiritualia. See Spiritual
I'Jj'rrciscft.
Kxhorters in the Scottish Cliurcli,
305,
Faber, Johann, Archbishopof Vienna.
See I/rigcrlein, Johann.
Faber, Peter, the Jesuit, 537, 545,
548, 557.
Face of a Church, the "Congrega-
tion" assumt^ the,, 290.
Fagius (Biichlcin), Paul, 358.
620
INDEX
Farel, William, at Basel, 39 ; early
life, 39 w. ; called a Lutheran
preacher, 16 n. ; at Aigle, 67/.,
69 ; the apostle of French-speak-
ing Switzerland, 67 ; baptized his
converts from Romanism, 68 n. ;
organises a band of evangelists,
71 and n. ; at Vallingen, 72 : sent
by Bern to Geneva, 80 ; in Geneva
during the siege, 84 ; attempt to
poison, 84 and n. ; preaches in the
cathedral at Geneva, 86 ; induces
the Council of Geneva to abolish
the Mass, 88 ; struggle against the
evil morals of the town, 90 ; char-
acter and marriage, 91 ; joined by
Calvin, 102 ; at the Lausanne
Disputation, 103 ; his "congrega-
tion," 105 w. ; banished from
Geneva, 74 and n., 115-124 ; 12,
45m., 97, 109, 118/., 143.
Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster,
400 n.
Ferdinand of Austria, and the ex-
communication of Elizabeth, 1 n. ;
on the Protestants in Vienna, 2 ;
and the Anabaptists, 447, 449.
Feria, Count de, Ambassador of Philip
of Spain, 388, 400.
Ferrar, Robert, Bishop of St. David's,
378.
Ferrara, Ren^e, Duchess of, 101, 505.
Ferriere, Sieur de la, 165.
Ficino, Marsiglio, and Marguerite af
Navarre,, 137.
Flag of the Swiss Confederacy, 21.
Flying Squadron. See Escadron.
Fontainebleau, Edict of, 147 ; 184/.
Foxe, Edward, Bishop of Hereford,
340/
Foxe, John, the Marty rologist, 332.
Francis I. of France, alternately pro-
tects and persecutes the Reformers,
143/, 145, 147#. ; Calvin's letter
to, 147; founds the "Royal
Lectureships " at Paris, 534/
Francis of Assisi, 506/., 527.
Franciscans and the Reformation,
305.
Franciscans, reformation among the,
508/
Frankfurt congregation of English
exiles, 287 ; 20.
Frankfurt Cotiferentey 124.
Frankfurt Fair, 18.
Frederick, Elector of the Palatinate,
becomes a Calvinist, 3, 4 n,
Fregoso, Fred., Archbishop of Sal-
erno, 505, 510.
Freiburg, Swiss Canton, strongly
Romanist, 43, 65, 75«., 76, 84 ;
21.
Frenchman, this {iste Gallus), 102
and n., 153.
Friesland, East, an Anabaptist place
of refuge, 238.
Forest Cantons, and the Reformation,
41, 50 ; at war with Zurich, 49 ;
22.
Froben, printer at Basel, 27.
Froment, Antoine, at Vallingen, 72 ;
in Geneva, 7 if. ; his wife a
preacher, 74 m. ; contest with Fur-
biti, 78/ ; during the siege of
Geneva, 84.
Furbiti, Guy, Romanist preacher in
Geneva, 78/.
Gallars, Nicholas des, minister of
French Protestants in London,
186.
Gallen, St., 22, 47, 48, 60, 122, 437,
440.
Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Win-
chester, 349, 352, 369, 371, 375.
Geelen, Jan van, an Anabaptist
leader, 239.
Gemblours, 266.
Geneva, city of, history and con-
stitution, 61/. ; parties in, 62 ;
Bern and Freiburg, 63 ; "the gate
of western Switzerland," 63, 89 ;
town councils in, 63 ; Luther's
writings in, 64 71-. ; turbulent
priests in, 77 and n. ; the affair
of Furbiti in, 78-82 ; plot to seize
the town, 82 ; besieged by the
Bishop and the Duke of Savoy,
83 ; attempt to poison the Re-
formed preachers in, 84 and n. ;
Public l)isputatio7i in, 85/ ; Mass
abolished provisionally in, 87 ,
completely, 89 ; Disputation before
the Council, 88 ; becomes an in-
dependent republic, 89 ; motto
Post tencbras lux, 89 ; evil living
in, 90 and n. ; the Articles of
105/. ; adopts the ceremonies of
Bern, 118/ ; banishes Calvin and
Farel, 120/ ; begs Calvin to
return, 125/ ; the ecclesiastical
ordinances of, 128 ; Consistonj of,
128/ ; the ministry in, 131/ ;
what Calvin did for, 130/ ; a
city of refuge, 134 ; "the dogs of
Geneva," 187 ; sends missionaries
to the Netherlands, 233, 249 ; 6,
8, 45, 152.
INDEX
621
Geneva, Bishop of, 61/., 77, 116/. ;
Amadeus viu. of Savoy, 62 ;
Pierre de la Baume, 77, 82/., 85,
89.
Geneva, Vidomne of, 62, 117.
Gentili, Anti-Trinitarian, 426.
German National Council feared by
the Pope, 565 n.
German Protestant opinion of Henry
VIII., 341.
German Vulgate, 434.
Germany and the Counter-Reforma-
tion, 6C6/.
Gerviany, name given to an Inn at
Cambridge, 320, 330.
Gex, district of, 117.
Ghent, city of, 265, 267.
Glapion, confessor to Charles v. and
Luther, 494.
Glareanus (Heinrich Loriti). See
Loriti,
Glarus, a Swiss Canton, 22, 27/".
Goch', John Pupper of, 226, 230.
Goderick, English lawyer, and his
Advice, 389.
Gonzaga, Elenore, Duchess of Urbino,
506.
Gonzaga, Ercoli di. Cardinal of
Mantua, principal Legate at the
third meeting of the CounoiT of
Trent, 588.
Gonzaga, Julia, 506.
Grace, pilgrimage of, 346.
Grandson, in the Pays de Vaud, 43,
67", 72.
Granvelle, Antoine Perronet de.
Cardinal and Bishop of Arras, 243,
519, 521.
Graphaeus, Cornelius, 230.
Grassis, Matteo, founder of the
Capucins, 507/
Graubiinden, the (Orisons), 22, 49/
Grebel, Conrad, Humanist and Ana-
baptist, 436, 446/
Grey, Lady Jane, 371.
Gribaldo, Giovanni Valentino, an
Anti-Trinitarian, 426.
Grindal, Edmund, afterwards Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, 402 «.,
404.
Groot, Gerard, and the Brethren of
the Common Lot, 226, 228.
Guest, Edmund, letter to Cecily 398
and 71.
Guetix, Les. See Beggars.
Guipuzcoa, the district in which
Loyola was born, 525.
Guises, the family of the, 151, 173
and n., 180, 209, 283, 295, 297.
Guise, Francis, Duke of, 170, 173,
177/, 187, 189, 191/, 296.
Charles, brother of Francis,
Cardinal of Lorraine, 163, 170,
173, 177, 187, 312, 588.
Louis, brother of Francis, Car-
dinal of Guise, 189, 213.
Henry, Duke of, son of Francis,
198/., 208, 212/.
Charles, Duke of Mayenne, son
of Francis, 213/, 218.
Haarlem, Town of, 236/., 261.
Hagenau, Conference at, 124.
Hague, The, 236.
Haller, Berthold, Reformer of Bern,
40/, 64 n., 68.
Hamilton, Patrick, 279/
Hanseatic League, 279.
Hapsburg (the place), 21.
Heath, Dr., Archdeacon of Canter-
bury, 340/
Hegius (Haag) Alexander, 226.
Heidelberg Catechism, 3, 4n.
Heigerlein, Johann (Faber), 26 and
7?., 30, 34, 512.
Helvetic Confession, First, 671.
Henry 11. of France, consistently
persecutes the Protestants, 151.
Henry in., 204, 214.
Henry iv. See Bourbon.
Henry viil. of England, his policy
towards Scotland, 282/ ; bad de^
fended curialist claims, 321 ; real
doubts about the validity of his
marriage, 322/ i security of the
kingdom demanded a male heir,
323 ; expected the Pope to declare
his marriage invalid, 324 ; ai)peala
to the Universities, 326 ; Suprrvw.
Head of the Church, 327 ; uses tlie
annates to coerce the Curia, 328 ;
separates from Rome, 330jf. ; and
the German Protestants, 340^ ,
347 ; his theological learning, 347 ,
his will, 352 ; and Zwingli, 10 ;
315/, 370, 417.
Henry of Conde. See Bourl>on.
Hesse Ca^el becomes Calvinist, 3.
Hildegard of Bingen, 142 71.
Hoen, Cornelius van (sacramental
Controversv), 53.
Hoffmann, Melchior, 236/, 438, 442,
444, 458.
Hondlies,. The Twelve (England),
358.
Hoogstraton, 249.
Hooper. John, Bishop ol Gloucester,
318, 353, 359, 364/, 377/
622
INDEX
Hopital, Michel de 1', Chancellor of
France, 177, 181, 186.
Hopkins, Thomas, metrical version
of the Psalms, 355.
Hiibinaier, Balthasar, Anabaptist,
434/., 442.
Ilulst, Francis van de. Inquisitor,
230.
Humanism and the Reformed
Churches, 9 ; and the Italian Re-
formers, 504, 507.
Humanism, Christian, 319.
Hus, John, 31.
Hussites, 92.
Hut, Hans, Anabaptist, 439.
Hymn-book of the Brethren, 435,
449/:
^conoclasm in Switzerland, 72, 87 ;
in France, 145, 183, 191 ; in the
Netherlands, 253, 267 ; in Scot-
land, 294 ; in Munster, 453.
Ignatius Loyola, family and early
life, 525 ; on his sick-bed, 527 ; at
Manresa, 527 f. ; his visions, 527.
529, 532, 552; and Luther, 529,
532, 559 ; his mysticism, 530 ; at
school at Barcelona, 532 ; im-
prisoned for heresy, 533 ; in Paris,
533/ ; considered doctrines as
military commands, 536; in Italy,
545/ ; his preachers in Italy,
546 ; Society of Jesus founded,
548/. ; elected General, 549/. ;
seeks to win back Germany, 556/ ;
his home mission work, 559 ; an
educated clergy, 559.
lies de Saintonge, Church at, 166.
See Saintonge.
Illiteracy of English clergy, 353/
Images, miraculous, destroyed, 344
and n. ; 352, 409.
Index of Prohibited Books, 602/ ;
practice of burning books, 602/". ;
■ various list of, 603 ; 231/ ; effect
on learning, 605.
Indulgence, in Geneva, 64 ; long ob-
jected to in the Netherlands, 228 ;
16, 28.
Injunctions in England, of 1536
(Henry Vlll.), 334, 339; of 1538
(Henry Vlii.), 335, 340 ; of 1547
(Edward vi.), 352 ; of 1554 (Mary),
374 ; of Elizabeth, 407, 410.
Inner Light, The, 423/, 456.
Inquisition, three types of, 597 ; the
Spanish, 598 ; proposed in France,
163, 1^9 ; in the Netherlands, 229,
256; in Italy, 470, 600 /f, ; 48?^,
492, 497, 531.
Institutio, Christiance Religionis,
based on the Apostles' Creed., 100 ;
on ecclesiastical government, 129 ;
what it did for the Reformation,
156/". ; 99/, 147, 156, 159, 305,
514.
Instruction, Zwingli's, 35.
Ivterim, The Augsburg, 567.
Irish missionaries in Switzerland,
23.
Isabella of Castile and the Spanish
Relormation, 490.
Isoudun, 166.
Italian hn-etic Friars, 386 n.
Italy, religious condition of, 501/ *
the peasants, 501 ; in the towns,
503.
Ivry, Battle of, 218.
James v. of Scotland, 281.
Jarnac, Battle, 194.
Jay, Claude, Jesuit, 537, 556, 557.
Jeanne d'Albret,daughter of Margaret
of Navarre, wife of Antoine de
Bourbon and mother of Henry iv.
of France, declares herself a Pro-
testant, 185; in La Rochelle, 194;
consents to the marriage of her
son with Marguerite de Valois, the
daughter of Catherine de' Medici,
197; 172, 189, 195.
Jeanne de Jussie, chronicler nun of
Geneva, 65 ?i. ; 74 m., 79 and n.,
83 w.; 117.
Jesuits. See Comjm^iy of Jesus.
Jesuits in France, 608 ; in Germany,
606.
Jewel, John, Bishop of Salisbury,
391, 402 w., 404, 407, 413 and n.
John Casimir in the Netherlands,
266.
John Frederick of Saxony and
Henry viii., 340, 347.
John George of Anhalt, 3.
Joinville, Chateau of, 190 ; Treaty
of, 207 ; Prince of, 213.
Jon, Francis du, 249.
Joycuse entree of Brabant, 246.
Jud, Leo, 111.
Jurisdictionis potestas, 332.
Jus episcopate of Civil Rulers, 9.
Justification of the Prince of Orange,
258.
Justification, The Doctrine of, at the
Regensburg Conference, 519/,
577 ; at the Council of Trent. 568,
576/ - ■
INDEX
G23
Kaiser, a Zurich pastor burnt as a
heretic in Scliwyz, 49.
Kampen, 237.
Kappel, First Peace of, 49 ; Second
Peace of, 51 ; Battle of, 51 ; Charter
of, 51.
Kata- Baptists, 423, 434.
Kessler, Johann, 47.
Kibbenbroick, Gerard, Anabaptist
burgomaster of Miiuster, 4G0.
Kinds, taking tlie coniiuunion in
both, a sign of Protestantism, 20,
399, 405 n.
King's Book, The, 10, 337, 349.
Kirkcaldy of Grange, Sir William,
234.
Kirk-Session, ecclesiastical court in
the Scottish Church, 308.
Klein-Basel, 25.
Knipperdolling, Bernhardt, Anabap-
tist, burgomaster of Minister, 460 ;
425, 454 and 7i., 468.
Knox,' John, early history, 285 ;
galley - slave in France, 286 ;
preaches in England, 286/., 360,
362 ; in Switzerland and Germany,
287 ; marries Marjory Bowes, 288 ;
in Scotland, 293 ; in Ediiil>nrgli,
299/. ; rapidity of his work, 308 ;
and Queen Mary, 309/". ; and the
Diiko 01 Somerset, 359.
Kolb, Francis, pleaches in Bern,
42.
Krakau (Cracow), a Socinian centre,
472.
Kuiper, Willem de, a disciple of Jan
Mattliys, 459.
Lainez, Diego, Jesuit, 188, 537, 455,
548, 552, 556, 577/., 595.
Lambtrt, Francis, 64 n.
Lasco, John a, Polish refugee in
England, 358.
Latimer, Hugh, Bishop of Worcester,
371, 378, 382.
Laud, Archbishop, 355.
Lausanne, Bishop of, refuses to come
to the Bern Disputation, 41, 44.
Lausanne, Bisho]»ric of, 23, 67, 70.
Lausanne, part of the Pays-de-Vaud,
67, 113, 116, 152 ; reformation in,
70, 89, 125.
League, The Perpetual (Forest Can-
tons), 21 ; of Brunnen, 21 ; of the
House of God (Rha;tia), 22 ; The
Grey (Grisons), 22 ; of the Tfn
JurisdictioTis, 22 ; 'The three per-
pet2ial, of Mcetia, 22 ; Christian
Civic, 48 ; Borromean, 60 ; T)ic
Lragn^ ag-iinst the Huguenots,
how it arose, 205 (f. ; becomes dis-
loyal, 207, 20'J, 212, 608 ; The
Lcngae of Paris, 207 ; the SixUcn,
210.
Leclere, Jean, Fieiich Protcsfant
martyr, 143.
Leclere, Pierre, Minister at Meaux
150.
Lecturt-rs, Royal. See Jioyul.
Lefevie d' Etaples, Jac(4Ues (Fal)er
Stapulensis) and Humanism, 11 ;
and Luther, 15, 74, 97 ; wishes to
restore the practices of tlie Church
of the first three centuries, 109 ;
inspired the "grouit of Meaux,"
141 ; anticijtated Luther, 141 ;
translated the Bible into French,
142 ; a mystic, 142 a.
Leib, Kilian, Salzburg chronicler,
and the Anabaptists, 448.
Leith, 17, 279.
Lenten Fasting, 31.
I^sley, Norman, 284.
Lethington, William Maitland of.
See Maitland.
Leyden, Anabaptist attempt on, 239;
siege of, 263 ; University of, 264.
Leyden, Jan of. See Bockclson.
Lihcrtines in Geneva, 116.
LiiiJau, 48.
Liu'lsay, Sir David, Scottish satirist,
278.
Lollards, in England, 316/., 374 ;
and Anabajttists, 440/
Lunls of tht Congregation (Scotland),
2^9, 293, 299, 420.
Loiiti, Heinrichof(narus(Glareanns),
Swiss Humanist, lS7i., 257i.,'29.
Lorraine, The Cardinal of..« See Guise.
Louis ot Coiide. See Bourbon.
Louis of Na.ssau. See Nass(tv.
Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis i. ,
137, 144.
liouvain, University of, and list of
Prohibited Books, 603.
Loyola, Ignatius. See Ignatius.
Lupulus. See M'olflcin.
Luther, on clerical marriage, 37 ; in-
fluence on the Reformed Cliurches,
13jf. ; anticijiations of his teach-
-ing,* 15, 141 ; and Zwingli, 27,
50 ; theory of the Eucharist, 56,
412/". ; 16/., 24, 53, 124, 141,
148, 154, 341, 354, 40571., 421,
452, 473, 493, 507, 529, 570. 578.
Luther's writings known in France,
142 ; in England, 320 ; in Geneva,
64 /I. ; in Scotland, 279.
624
INDEX
Lutheran theologians invited to
France, 146.
Lutheran, a name applied to all Pro-
testants, 16 and 7i., 65, 79 ti., 150,
330, 600.
Lutherans lost part of Germany to
the Reformed, 3.
Lutzem, 22, 47/. ; Diet at, 32.
Lyons, Church at, 166.
Ma9on, Jean le, first Protestant
minister in PariSj 166.
Macronius, Martin, 364.
Madruzzo, Bishop of Trent and Car-
dinal, 567/., 574, 581.
Madruzzo, Ludovico, Bishop of Trent,
588.
Mainz, Archiepiscopal Province of,
23.
Maitland, "William, of Lethington,
19, 304, 310, 312.
Mamelukes (in Geneva), 62.
Mangin, ^fitienne, of Meaux, 150.
Manresa, Dominican Convent at,
527 ; Ignatius Loyola at, 528.
Mantes, Assembly of French Pro-
testants at, 221.
Manuel, Nicholas, artist in Bern, 40.
Manz, Felix, Swiss Anabaptist mar-
tyr, 446/.
Marais-Saint-Germain, Rue de, 174.
Marburg Colloquy, the, 50.
Marcourt, Antoine, author of the
Placards, 146. , '
Margaret of Parma, 242, 248, 250,
252, 257.
Marguerite d'Angouleme, sister of
Francis i., married the King of
Navarre, education and character,
136/ ; her Christian Platonism,
137 ; relations with Bri9onnet, 138 ;
with Luther and Calvin, 138 ;
the Heptavieron, 140 ; accused of
heresy, 145 ; 11, 74?i., 97?i., 136?i.,
143, 505/., 534/
Marguerite de Valois, daughter of
Catherine de' Medici, married to
Henry iv., 197.
Marignano, Battle of, 28.
Marnix, John de, 254.
Marot, Clement, his French Psalms
in Geneva, I06w.., 148 ; in Paris,
172 ; 93, 146.
Marriage, regulations for, in Geneva,
105/ ; of the clergy, 355 ; "cleri-
cal," 36; 33, 42.
Marsiglio Ficiuo, 137.
Marsiglio of Padua, 434.
Martha Houses (Jesuit), 561.
Martyr Vermigli, Peter, 358.
Martyrs, in England under Queen
Mary, 376/ ; in the Netherlands,
224, 230/ ; in Scotland, 280/ ;
in France, 148/
Mary of Burgundy, daughter of
Charles the Bold and grandmother
of Charles v., wife of Maximilian,
225.
Mary of Guise or Lorraine, sister of
Francis Duke of Guise, and Queen
of James v. of Scotland, 20, 290,
293/, 386.
Mary of Hungary, Regent of the
Netherlands, 233, 240, 518.
Mary, Queen of England, reaction
under, 368/ ; marries Philip,
prince of Spain ; Papal supremacy
restored, 373 ; Romanist legisla-
tion, 373/ ; scruples about pos-
session of ecclesiastical lands, 382 ;
death, 383/ ; 292, 346, 380.
Mary, Queen of Scotland, educated
in France, 283 ; "the little Queen,"
283 ; refuses to ratify the acts of
the reforming Estates, 309 ; in
Scotland, 309/ ; her coming
dreaded, 309 ; 281, 292, 310.
Massacres, at Vassy, 190 ; at Sens,
190 ; at Toulouse, 190 ; at Rout-n,
190 ; at Paris, 190 ; of St. Bar-
tholomew, 198/, 261, 608 ; at
Zutphen, 261 ; at Haarlem, 261.
Matthew, Thomas, of Matthew's
Bible, 339.
Maubert, Place, where the Protest-
ants were burnt, 148.
Mayenne, Duke of. See Guise.
Meaux, The group of, 11/, 67, 97,
109, 137/, 145.
Meaux, the Fourteen of, 148, 150.
Meaux, Protestant Church in, 165/
Mechlin burnt by the Spaniards,
261.
Medici, Giovanni Giacomo de', a
condottiere, 50.
Meersberg, 47.
Melanchthon, 4?i., 148, 154, 340,
507, 519/, .557.
Melchiorites, The, 438 ; in Miinster,
458 ; on separation, 465.
Mendoza, Pedro, Archbishop of
Toledo and Cardinal, 490.
Merindol, ArrU de, 149.
Merlin, Jean Raymond, 184.
Meyer, Johann, of Eck, 26.
Meyer, Sebastian, Reformer of Bern,
40.
Michelet, Jules, on Calvin, 159.
INDEX
G'2b
Milhaud, a Huguenot stronghold, 201.
Milton, John, 13.
Ministry in the Reformed Churches,
131.
Mirabel, a Huguenot stronghold,
201.
Miroir de VAme pMeresse, 97 7i., 98.
Molard, The, in Geneva, 77.
Monasteries, The dissolution of the,
343.
Moncontour, Battle of, 195.
Monnikendam, 237.
Montauban, Huguenot stronghold,
195, 201/., 223.
Monte Cassino, 509.
Monte, Gian Maria Giocchi, Cardinal
del, later Pope Julius in,, 566,
581.
Montmor, The family of, with whom
Calvin was educated, 92.
Montmorency, The Constable de, 151,
170, 173, 178, 189, 191, 193.
Montppllier, Huguenot stronghold,
223.
Montpensier, Duchess of, a Leaguer,
210, 216.
Montrose, 279.
Morals, municipal legislation con-
cerning, 108, 123w., 129; standard
of, low in Western Switzerland,
113.
Morat, part of the Pays de Vaud, 43,
47.
Moray, James Stewart, Earl of, 291,
310;
More, Sir Thomas, 317, 319, 321,
325, 337/.
Morel, minister in Paris, 186.
Morgarten, the battle of, 21, 26.
Mornay du Plessis, Madame, way
she dressed her hair, 168 7i.
Morone, Giovanni de Cardinal, 512,
516, 524, 586, 591, 595.
Mortal sin, Jesuits wary of charging
their penitents with, 555.
Muete, Gu6rin, a leading evangelical
in Geneva, 76.
Miihlhausen, 43, 60, 122.
Miiller, Hans of Medikon, Anabap-
tist, 441.
Mundt, Dr. Christopher, Cecil's agent
in Germany, 296 and n.
Municipal life in the Netherlands,
225.
MWnster, Bishop of, 453, 454.
Miinster, city of, enrolled in the
Schmalkald League, 455 : besieged
during the whole period of Ana-
baj.tist rule, 462 ; fall of. 468
40**
AfunsUr, Kingdom of Ood in, 431.
438, 451/.
Mysticism, Spanish, 490, 530 jf. . 547.
671.
Nacchianti, Bishop of Chioggia, on
Tradition and Scripture, 574.
Nancy, 207.
Nantes, Edict of, 19, 221/.
Nassau Confession, 4 n.
Nassau, William oi, Prince of Orange,
at the abdication of Charles v.,
240 ; member of the Council of
State for the Netherlands, 243 ;
profits against the treatment of
the Netherlands, 247 ; not deceived
by Philij.'s duplicity, 253 ; his
Jiistifcaliun, 258 ; chosen Stadt-
holder, 260 ; Governor of the
Seventeen Provinces, 266 ; reward
oHered for his assassination, 267 ;
his Apology ; 267 ; assassinated,
268 ; how he acquired the Prin-
cipality of Orange - Chalons, 268
and 11. ; his wives, 269 n. ; hia
character, 268/
Louis of, 249, 252, 260, 263.
Nassouwtn, Wilhelinus von, 261.
National characteristics reaj)pear in
the various Reformed Churches,
19.
Nemours, Duchess of, 216.
Nerac, capital of French Navarre,
139, 185.
Neuchatel, 43, 73, 89, 125, 146.
Neuville, 89.
Nrw Learning, The, 26, 137, 14l,
■ 359, 492, 515.
Nil ene Creed, 130 ; at the Council
of Trent, 593.
Nimes, 165, 201, 202.
Nisbet, Murdoch, translated the New
Testamentinto Scots, 277 n.
Northumberland, John Dudlev,
Duke of, 3.^.9.
Notables, Assembly of {Yr&nce), 177.
Notables, Assembly </ (England),
326.
Novara, Battle of, 28.
Noyon, Birthplace of Calvin, 92.
Nuns, in (Jcneva,- 90 ; none among
the Jesuits, 561.
Ochino, Bernardino, ?58.
Oebli, Hans, I^andaniann of Gl.iru^
49.
Oecolainjiadius. .lohanu' s (H- iis^" n',
at lla-eJ, 39 ; on ex<otnniinii<.«-
tion, 112 ; 149, 320
626
INDEX
Oldenbarne veldt, John of, 269.
Olevian, Caspar, An.
Oliv^tan, Pierre Robert, translator of
the Bible into French, 95.
Ollon, part of the Pays de Vaud, 67.
Orange, Prince of. See Nassau.
Orange, Principality of Orange-
Chalons, 268 71.
Oratory, Chambers of (Netherlands),
226.
Oratory of Divine Love, The, 505,
509/.
Orbe, part of the Pays de Vaud,
67.
Ordinis Potestas, 332.
Ordonnances icclesiastiques de V6glise
de Geneve, 107, 128/., 131.
Orleans, Calvin at, 95 ; church at,
166 ; 146, 181.
Ormonts, part of the Pays de Vaud,
67.
Oxford, 17, 276, 320.
Pacification of Ghent, 265/., 267.
Palatinate, becomes Calvinist, 3.
Pampeluna, Ignatius Loyola, at the
siege of, 526.
Pane, Roletus de, Romanist in
Geneva, 88.
Pantheist Mysticism, 422, 424.
Paraphrases, Erasmus*, in the Church
of England, 353.
Paris, Luther's writings in, .18 and
71. ; aliair of the Placards, 145 ;
prisons in, 164 ; L&ague of, 207 jf.
Paris' students songs, 535/.
Parker, Dr. Matthew, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 404, 409, 417.
Parkhurst, John, Bishop of Norwich,
4027i., 416.
Parlement. of Paris and the Reforma-
tion, 142/., 144, 146, 160, 162/,
169, 170, 171, 174, 185, 213, 220,
585, 556.
Parlement, of Aix, 147, 149 ; of Bor-
deaux, 147, 217 ; of Dijon, 176 ; of
Rouen, 147 ; of Toulouse, 147, 171.
Parlements, French, 163 71., 217.
PaHiament for the enormities of the
Clergy, 326, 327.
Parma, Alexander Farnese, Duke of,
218, 220, 249, 266.
Parma, Margaret of. See Margaret.
Patrick^ s Places, 280 n.
Pairim^ny of the Kirk, 306.
Paul IV., Pope, l7t., 163, 169. See
Caraffa.
Paul, Martin, of the Grabunden, 50.
Pay erne, 64, 89.
Pays de Vaud, QQ, 84, 89, lOa, 109,'
116/
Peace of Monsieur, 204.
Peasantry, Italian, religious condi-
tion, 501 ; devotion to Francis of
Assisi and his imitators, 502.
Peasants' War, Tke, 54.
Penance, Doctrine of, at the Council
of Trent, 584.
Penney, 117.
Penz, Jorg, pupil of Albrecht Diirer,
Anabaptist, 436.
Picards, 11, 92.
Picardy, character of the people, 92.
Pictures in Churches (Zurich), 35, 42.
Philip of Hesse and the Anabaptists,
447, 455, 458 ; 58.
Philip II. of Spain, compared with
Charles v.-, 240/ ; policy of extir-
pation of Protestants, 241 ; minute
knowledge of Netherlands* attairs,
243 71., 244.
Pius v., 196, 595.
Placards (manifestoes) in Geneva,
64/ ; in Paris, about the Mass,
145.
Placards (Government proclamations
- against the Protestants) in the
Netherlands, 242, 245, 247, 256,
265.
Platonism, Christian, 11, 137.
Poissy, Colloquy of, 20, 186/., 313 ;
Conference at, 188 ; Edict of, 188.
Poitiers, Church at, 166/
Pole, Reginald, Archbishop of Canter-
bury, Cardinal, member of the
Oratory of Diviiie Love, 505 ;
Legate at the Council of Trent,
566 ; 372, 377, 381/., 510, 524,
587 71.
Politiques, Les, 203.
Polonorum, Bibliotheca Fratntm, 472.
Polygamy, in Miinster, 463/.
Post tenebras lux, 89.
Pope, the Primacy of the, 33, 492 ;
Swiss Bodyguard of the, 23 ;
power limited by the Peace of
Augsburg, 1 and oi., 405, 414;
and Bishops at the Council of
Trent, 592/ See Curialism.
Popes mentioned :
Innocent iii. (1198-1216), 597.
Julius II. (1503-1521), 322, 371.
Leo X. (1513-1523), 180, 319/
Adrian vi. (1522-1523), 494,
496/.
Clement vii. (1523-1534), 64,
324 ; advisps Henry viii. to
bigamy, 325, 510.
INDEX
627
Popes mentioned :
Paul III. (1534-1549), Peforms
under, 510, 512 ; 345, 357,
470, 500, 510, 548, 550, 581 ;
and the Council of Trent, 565
and n., 581.
Julius III. (1550-1555), Council
ofTrentunder,565andn.,581.
Marcellus ii. (1555), 585.
Paul IV. (1555-1559), Council
of Trent under, 565 and n.,
591, 594 ; 245.
Pius IV. (1559-1565), his policy
of reformation, 595.
Pius V. (1566-1572), 196.
. Sixtus V. (1580-1590), 208.
Prcemunire, Statutes of, 325.
Fragmatic Sanction of BmtrgeSy 183.
Frayer-Book of King Edxcard VI.,
The First, 356/., 361, 403 7i.
Prayer-Book of Kivg Edward VI.,
The Second, 287, 290 and n., 361/.,
395/., 398, 401, 403 and n., 405.
Prayer- Book of Elizabeth, 396/.,
401, 404, 419.
Praying Circles or Hcadixigs among
the Brethren, 433.
Pre-aux-clercs, The, Psalm-singing
at, 172, 183 ; 165.
Presence of the Body of Christ in the
Sacrament of the Supper, 411 jf.
Privas, a Huguenot stronghold, 201.
Privileges of Nobles in France in the
Sixteenth Century, 171.
Processions cxjnatory, in Paris, 146.
Proclamntiovs about religion, by
Mary, 370 ; by Elizabeth, 388,
Psalms, Calvin's Comtnenlary on the,
97, 101.
Psalms, Singing of the, in the ver-
nacular, 106 and n., 183, 251/. ;
in the Netherlands, 251 ; in
England, 355 ; Clement Marot's,
172 and n., 252.
Pseaumes included religious canticles,
107 w.
Purgatory, The Doctrine of , attacked,
3i, 33, 42. ■
Puritanism, the beginnings of, 364.
Puy, Cardinal du, Prefect of the
inquisition, 378.
Queen, The lUtlc, 282/.
Quignon, Cardinal, a liturgist, 357.
Quintin,. Dr., speaker for the clergv
at the States-General of 1560, 182.
Randolph, Sir Thomns, Elizabeth's
Ambassador in Scotland, 303, 311.
Ratisbon. See Regenshurg.
Readers in the Scottish Church, 805.
Readings, 433.
Re-baptism, 68 n. ; 424, 447.
Reformation of the Mediaeval Church
demanded by all, 484.
Reformed Churches, Confraternity
among the, 20 ; Confessions. See
Coiifessions.
Reformers in Italy, 503/
Regensbnrg, The Conferevcc at,
519/. ; was the parting of the
ways, 523.
Regents in the Netherlands, Margaret
of Austria, 225 ; Afary, widowed
Queen of Hungary, 233, 242 ;
Margaret of Purma, 242, 248, 250,
252, 257 ; the Duke of Alva, see
Jlva ; Alexander Farne.se, Duke
of Parma, see Parma.
Relics destroyed in England, 343,
344 and n.
Religion, Tho.se of the, 160.
]ieligion, The alteration of, 396.
Renaissance, The, 6, 8.
Renan, Ernest, on Calvin, 159.
Renard, Siinuri, envoy of Charles v.
in England, 377.
Renato, Camille, 426.
Renaudie, Oo<lefroy de Barry, Seig-
neur de la, 175.
Ren^e, Duchess of Ferrara. See
Fcrrara.
Re(jue3ens-y-Zuniga, Don Louis, 262.
Rrqxirst, The (Netherlands), 250.
Rtsrrratio eccl>'siastica, 2.
Restitution, Tin, delends polygamy
in Miinster, 467.
Khaetia, 22. .'
Richmond, Henf}' Fitzrov,, Duke of,
323.
Ridley, Nicholas, Bisho]) of London,
318, 359,-360, 364/"., 871, 878,
382.
Riots in Geneva, 81, 87.
Rocco di Musso, on the Ijake of
Como, 50.
Rocheblond, Sieur de la, founder of
tire Paris League, 207/
R(H-hclle, La, Huguenot stronghold,
194/., 201, 223.-
Rodriguez, Simon, Jesuit, 537, 566.
Rogers. John, 339, 377.
Roll, Heinrich, Anabaptist, 456.
Roman Civil Law and eccleaiastical
rule, 8.
Romani.>4t rcartion in Eumpo, 387.
Roser, Isabella, and Ignatius Loyo]*,
561 and n., 56^.
628
INDEX
Rothmann, Bernhard, Anabaptist
leader in Munster, 452/". ; his
Theses^ 454 ; doctrine of the Holy
Supper, 455/. ; accepts polygamy
with difficulty, 465/. ; death, 468.
Rotterdam, 11.
Jtotuli Scotice, The, 276.
Riiubli, William, first Swiss priest to
marry, 37.
Rouen, Cliureh at, 166.
Rough, John, Scottish preacher, 285.
Roussel, Gerard, 97, 109.
Jioycd Lecturers in Paris, 95, 98.
Rubric, The Black, on kneeling at
the Lord's Supper, 362, 405 n.
Rubric, Ornaments, of 1559, 405
and w.
Rale of Faith, Doctrine of the, at the
Council of Trent, 568, 572/.
Ruysbroec, Jan van, the Mystic, 226.
Sacrament of the Holy Supper,
ought to be celebrated weekly, 105
and 7i. ; both "kinds" partaken,
355, 394 ; discussed at the Regens-
burg Conference, 522/ ; Doctrine
of, defined at the Council of Trent,
568, 582#.
Sacramental Controversy, Bern
Theses and the, 52 ; in the Nether-
lands and the Rhine Pro vines, 52 ;
Carlstadt's views, 53 ; Zwingli's
views permeate German cities, 53 ;
controversy complicated by politi-
cal ideas, 54 ; common thoughts
about the Sacrament of the Holy
Supper, 54 ; Eucharist and Mass,
55 ; Zwingli's theory, 55 ; Luther's
theory, 56 ; Calvin's theory
accepted in Switzerland, 59 ; and
in part of Germany, 60.
Sacramentarians, name given to the
followers of Zwingli, 146.
Sadoleto, Giacomo, Cardinal, 507.
510.
Saint- Andre, Marshal, 184, 190, 192.
Saint Andrews, 285.
Saint Bartholomew, Massacre of,
198 ; medal struck in Rome in
honour of, 200 and n.
Saint Denii, Henry iv. received into
the Roman Church at, 219 ; battle
of, 193.
Saint Germains, 185.
Saint Jacques, Rue de, in Paris, 167,
171.
Saint Omers, 254.
Sainte Aldegonde, Philip de Marnix,
lord of, 249.
St. Gallen. See Oallen.
Salamanca, University of, 491.
Salic Law, in France, 206 ; believed
to hold in England, 323.
Salnieron, Alonzo, Jesuit, 537, 548,
556, 566, 595.
Salzburg, Anabaptists in, 448 ; 48.
Sam, Conrad, of Ulm, 53.
Samson or Sanson, Benihard, a seller
of Indulgences, 29.
Saucerre, Huguenot stronghold, 201.
Sandilands, Isir James, 291.
Samlys, Edwin, Archbishop of York,
404.
Saunier, Antoine, Swiss evangelist,
82 n.
Savoy, 48 ; Duke of, 62, 64, 66, 77,
89, 116.
Schatfhausen, Swiss Canton, 22, 46,
43, 48, 60, 122.
Schifanoya, II, Venetian agent in
England, 392, 399 and n.
Schmalkald, 340, 347.
Schmalkald, Defender of the, 341.
Schmalkald League, The, and Mun-
ster, 455.
Schroder, Johann, Anabaptist
preacher in Miinster, 459.
Schwenkfeld, Caspar, 423, 453, 456.
Schwyz, Forest Canton, burnt Pastor
Kaiser of Zurich as a heretic, 49 ;
21/, 48.
Scot, Bishop, 400 71.
Scotland, and Heulelhurg Catechism,
4 n. ; preparation for the Refoima-
tion, 275 ; influence of old Celtic
Church, 275/ ; Lollardy in, 276/. ;
Acts of Parliament to suppress
Reformation, 281 ; French or
English alliance, 281/., 294;
place in the European situation,
295 ; English invasion, 298 ; Can-
fession of Faith, Book of Discipline,
Book of Common Order, 302/".
Scoto-Pelagian Theology, 474, 570.
Scottish Church and Civil supreniacy,
8;
Scottish Liturgy ^nd English alliance,
298 ; 306.
Scripture, Holy. See Rule of Faith.
Sea- Beggars, The, capture Brill, 260 ;
defeat Spanish fleet, 261, 263 ;
relieve Leyden, 264 ; 201.
Secular control over ecclesiastical
matters, 8, 129 ; in Spain, 489.
Seinpach, Battle of, 26.
Sepeca, De dementia, 12, 96.
Sen lis, Battle of. 214.
Sens, The French Council of, 144.
INDEX
629
Seripando, Giorlamo, General of the
Augustinian Eremites, on the
Doctrine of Jusl firofioii, 578.
Servede (Servetus) Miguel <le, jnonu-
tnent expiatoirc to, 1'30/. ; 424
and 11., 471.
Seville, College at, 491.
Sigiia exhibit iva and represcntaliva,
59.
Simon, Preacher at Aigle, 69.
Sinionetta, Luigi, Cardinal, dutits
at Trent, 590.
Simons, Menno, organised Baptist
Churches, 422, 465*.
Sin, Doctrine of, at tlie Rcgenshurij
Conference, 519/. ; at the Council
of Trent, 575/.
Singing, congregational, 105.
Sion, The Bishop of. 68.
Sixteen, The, 211, 213, 218.
Sixtus v., Pope, 208/
Soeinianisra began witli a criticism
of doctrines, 478 ; and Huni.inisin,
474 ; and Scotist theology. 474 ;
its idea of i^at7A, 475 ; of Scri/'titre,
476 ; God is Dominium Absolutum,
^TI ff. ; the Atonement superfluous,
478; doctrine of the Church,
480/.
Socinians called the Polish Brethren,
473.
Soleure, 73.
Solothurn, Swiss Canton, 22.
Somerset, Edward Seymour, Duke of,
Lord Protector of England, 283,
299, 352, 359.
Sommieres, Huguenot stronghold,
201.
Sorbonne, The, the theological
faculty in the University of Paris,
drafts a series of articles against
Calvin's Institvtio, 147 ; its list of
Prohibited Books, 148, 603 ; 95,
139, 142, 144/, 146.
Sozzini, Fausto, founder of the
Socinian Church, 422, 429, 471 ;
found that the Polisli Unitarians
were Anabaptists, 472.
Sozzini, Lelio, 427 and w., 470/.,
473.
Spac", Presence in, 57, 59, 412/.
Spaniaitls and Luther, 18, 493/
Spanish Fury, Th-e, 265.
Spanish treasure ships seized by
Queen Elizabeth, 259.
Spanish troops in the Netherlands,
245, 265.
Spanish idea of a reformation, 488 jf.
Speyer, 41.
Spiritual Exercises, The, 532, 537,
.=>38-545, 548, 555, 561, 585.
Stabler or Sta^men, The, Anabar.tists.
441.
Stadt, Karl, on the sacramental
controversy, 5:i.
Staff ort Book, The, 4 7/.
Staprade, Anabaptist preacher in
Miinster, 456.
States (Jeneral, The, of France, 177,
180/., 185/., 206, 212; of tho
Netherlands, 241, 266.
Stipends of clergy, 69.
Stoicism and the Reformed theology,
Straelen, Anthony von, 255.
Strassbiirg, 20, 43, 48, 60, 101, 124/.,
129, 144, 152, 453.
Submission of the Clergy (England)y
327.
Substancf and Presence, 59, 412/
Superintendenls in the Scottish
Church, 305, .308.
Supj)er, Doctrine of the Holy, at the
Regensburg Conference, 522/, at
the Council of Trent, 583.
Svpremr Governor of the Church
(England), 393, 418/
Supreme Head of the Church (Eng-
land), 327. 33i, 393 and ;e.
Swiss soldiers, 23/., 32.
Switzerland. jKjIitical con<lition.21 /f.,
how Christianised, 23; religious
war in, 49.
Synod of the Brethren, 485.
Synod of the Socinians at Krakau,
472.
SyniKls of the Reformed Churches, at
Bern, 73, 118 ; at Lausanne, 118 ;
at Zurich, 121; in 'the French
ProtestaiU Church, 167, 168; at
MaiOes, 221 ; in the Dutch Church,
271 ; difficulties in the way of ;i
Natiouol Duich Stfuod, 272 ; in
Scotland, 304.
T;ilavera, Fernando dc. Confessor to
Isabella of f'.istile. li^O. ■
Temples 'churehes), 1H4.
Ten Articles, The, of tlie English
Church. 10, 333/.
Teresa, Saint, 506, 531, 543.
TtstnmenJ and Coinplaynt of the Pa-
fitfuffo, 27 S
Theatre, -French, and the Reforma-
tion, 151.
T/'C^s, Zwingli's Sijitf-fn^v, 33.
Theses of Bern, The fen, 42. 15/.
Theses evangil iq^Ks de G'ffve, The, 85.
630
INDEX
Theses J ivangiliques of Lausanne^ 103.
Theses, Luther's, 17.
Theses, Rothmann's, 454.
Thirty -eight Articles, The. See
Articles.
Thirty-niTie Articles. See Articles.
Thirty Years' War, 2.
Thomas Aquinas, St., 78, 82, 491,
575.
Thomas of Canterbury, St., 845.
ThomisDi, The New, arose in Spain,
491/. ; at the Council of Trt-nt,
571, 577, 580, 582.
Thorens, Seigneur de, his house used
in Gen eva by the Evangel icals, 83 n.
Throckmorton, Sir Nicholas, Eliza-
beth's Ambassador in Paris, 296/.
Thyez, The people of, and secular
excommunication, 112 w. ; 117.
Tiger of France, Epistle sent to the,
176.
Tithes, attacked, 31, 446.
Toggenburg Valley, 24.
Toledo, College at, 491.
Torquemada, Thomas de, Inquisitor,
598/
Toin^ielle, La, criminal court of the
Parlement of Paris, 170.
Tournon, Cardinal de, 149, 187.
Tours, Church at, 166 ; Battle at,
214 ; Henry iv. at, 214, 216, 220.
Tradition, Dogmatic, 423, 573/
Transubsiantiation, 333, 412.
Trent, City of, 564/
Trent, Council of; First Meeting,
564-581 ; papal legates at, 565/ ;
differences among the Romanist
powers at, 566/ ; debates on pro-
cedure, 568^. ; Second Meeting,
581-587 ; definition of the doctrine
of the Sacraments, 582^. ; Third
Meeting, [>87 Jf. ; varying views
about the reoi'ganisatiou of the
Church, 588.^. ; was to be a con-
tinuation of the I'ormer Council,
589 ; procedure at, 589/ ; work of
Cardinal Simonetta at, 590 ; what
the Council did for the Roman
Catholic Church, 594 ; its list of
prohibited books, 604; 211, 247/,
416, 517.
Triumvirate, The, Montmorency, St.
Andr^ and Guise, 184, 190, 193.
Tschudi, Peter, a Humanist, ISw.
Tulchan Bishops, 360 and n.
Tunstall, Cuthbert, Bishop of Dur-
ham, 371, 373.
Twelve Articlr,^. The (The Apostles'
Creed), 518.
Twenty -one Articles, The, of the Anji«
baptists, 459, 465.
Tyndale, William, 279, 317, 319,
337/., 377.
Ubiquity, Doctrine of, 4, 7, 57, 412/
Udall, Nicholas, translated into Eng-
lish the Paraphrases of Erasmus,
353.
Ulm, 53.
Uniformity. See Act of.
Unterwalden, a Forest Canton, 21/.,
47.
Uri, a Forest Canton, 21/, 47.
Ursinus, Zachary, 4w.
Utrecht protests against Alva's taxa-
tion, 259.
Vadianus. See JVatt.
Valais, The, 22, 48 ; the Bishop of
the, 41.
Valladolid, University of, 491,
Val Tellina, The, 50.
Vargas, Juan de, 255.
Vassy, Massacre at, 189/
Vatable, Francis, a royal lecturer in
Paris, 96.
Vax, Antonia, attempts to poison
Farel and others, 84 and 7i.
Vermigli, Peter Martyr, 358.
Vestments {Ornaonents), Controversy
about, 364, 403, 405 and n.
Vicar-General (England), 332.
Vidomne of Geneva, 62, 117.
Vienna, University of, 25, 607.
Viret, Pierre, in Geneva, 81/., 112.
Visitation, Spanish Crown had the
right of ecclesiastical, 491.
Visitations of the Church in England,
332 ; 353, 407, 410.
Vlissingen (Flushing), seized by the
Sea-Beggars, 260.
Voes, Hcinrich, martyr in the Nether-
lands, 224, 230.
Volkertz, Jan, Anabaptist martyr,
236.
Vulgate, The Latin, and the Council
of Trent, 573/.
Wagner, Sebastian, 43 and n.
Walcheren, Island of, 254. 260.
Waldenses, 92, 148.
Waldshut, The Brethren met at, 434.
Wallen, Jan, Anabaptist martyr, 236.
War of Public Weal in France, 19^ ;
Religious wars in France, 191/. ;
in Switzerland, 19/.; of tlie Moors
and Christians in Spain, 488.
INDEX
G31
Warham, William, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 18, 317, 320, 322, 329
338.
Watt, Joachim de (Vadianus), a
Humanist, 25 7i., 47.
Watteville, M. de, Advoyer of Bern,
44 ; Nicholas de, 45 and n. ; .1. J.
<le, Advoyer of Bern, 45«., 73.
Wrckly Exercise, T/ie (Scotland), 308.
Welches, La Dispute de, 44.
Werly, Pierre, a turbulent canon of
Geneva, 65, 76 and 74., 77 7t.
Wesen, 25.
Wessel, Jolin of, 15, 226.
Westminster, Conference at, 20,
400 Jf.
Wiclif, 19, 317/. ; influence in Scot-
land, 277.
Wiclijitcs, 92, 317.
Wieck, van <ler, Lutheran Syndic of
Munster, 456/., 460.
Wied, Hermann von. Archbishop of
Kbln, 3, 558.
IFild-Beggars, Tlie, 257.
Wildermuth, a soldier of Bern, 91.
Wildhaus, Zwingli's birthplace, 24.
Wilhelmus van Nassouwen, 261.
Willebrock, 255.
William of Oraiig^. See Nassau.
Wishart, George, Scottish martyr,
284.
Wittenberg, 6, 11, 453.
Wiitenherg Articles, The, 341.
JViitenberg Concord, 60.
Wolflein, Heinrich (Liipulus), 25.
Wolmar, Melchior, taught Calvin at
Bourges, 95.
Wolsey, Cardinal, 18, 319, 320, 324,'
325, 343.
JVorks, Merit in, 33.
Worms, Conference at, 124, 125, 126.
Worms, Diet of, three forces met at,
495.
Wiirtemburg, 48.
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 371.
Wyttenbach, Thomas, 10, 27, 38, 46.
Xavier, Francis, 537, 556, 559.
Ximenes de Cisneros, Francesco,
Cardinal, 490/., 493, 497, 530.
Yaxley, Francis, agent of Mary of
Scotland, 420 n.
Ypres, 254.
Zug, Swiss Canton, 22, 47.
Zurich, Great Council in, 29, 33^r. ;
Public IHsjmtations in, 34/'. ; at
war with the Forest Cantons, 49 ;
CoHsens^is of, 60 ; syinxl at, 122 ;
ecclesiastical dibcijiliiie in, 129 ;
Anabaptists in, 441.
Zutplien burnt by theSi>aniar<l8, "261.
Zntj.heii, Hendru-k of, 228, 230.
Zu'ickau Prophets, 131.
Zwiiigli, Bartholomew, Dean of
Wesen, 25/.
Zwiiigli, Hultireich, the Elder, 25.
Zwiiigli, Huldreich, youth and edu-
cation, 24 ; moral character, 37 ;
Humanism and, 10, 37 ; and
Luther, 27, 55/.; corners to Zurich,
28 J?*. ; \\'\A Sixty-seven ThemK, 6n.,
33 ; and Anna Keinhard, 36 ;
theory of civil control over the
Chnrch, 8, 111, 112, 129 : on In-
dulgences, 16 ; views on the Suera-
ment (4 the Holy Supper, 5.'i ;
on ecclesiastical excomuiunication,
111/, 129 ; and the Anabaptists,
445.
Zwinplianism, 411. ,
Zwollo, full of Anabaptists, 237.
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