The reformation

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THE

REFORMATION

BY
GEORGE P. FISHER, D. Di

PROFES0OR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN YALE COLLEGE

(a ie
EUKOPESS 1

*ceession...... /

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1895

Copyright, 1873,
Br Scurmmn, Auurrnoxo, AxD ComPAny.

To
THEODORE DWIGHT WOOLSEY,
A FRIEND AND EXAMPLE OF ALL GOOD LEARNING,
‘THIS WORK 18 INSCRIBED,

AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT AND AFFECTION

BY THE AUTHOR.

= CONTENTS.
CHAPTER Vit.
‘THE REFORMATION IN VRANCE. |
‘The Sorbonne and Parliament oppose doctrinal innovations =.

RS Ge hater Urteee eek
Reform emanates from Humanism =. + + «© +
Francis L (1515-47); the patron of learning and art
Talore (1480-1880), th Fier Relat Vise

if
Hl
i
a

Oe she RS Tr *
‘Why Calvinism was disliked —. . .
Spirit of Loyola nnd the Catholic Reaction 2 ek
Rabelais (1489-1553), FatePr AS.
Vacillation of Francis I. and its consequences
Be permeate th Protviants (1804); curt the lance of the
Latheran princes tpn Be
erotd of Prviastantien bs Frazee fa Bis vlga” fois
Influence of Geneva andof Calvin. « .
Bpearab ?-#) Bi ety to the Hetraatos

eo bisa 5; general Bynod (iss9) °. . > s:
Porvccution after the trenty of Catoau-Cambresis; death
Wey (060). kw
Heroiern of the sufferers. . . ay
Hlow the Huguenots beeame a political patty raed
Catharine do Medic! ; her rlitions to Henry a is mle
tnd her charaetor
Fran 189-80) scone by the Gales ‘her weer
and character . .
Discontent of the Bourbons and Chatillons * ‘
Connection of the great nobles with tho Calvinteta’«

as
Gee % EEE BREESE sieugegege

| cea

Sa te tebe) Laurent

himself elsewhere affirms that in the sixteenth century,
religion was in a state of decadence and threatened with
ruin;! that Luther effected a religious revolution in the
mind of an age that was inclined to infidelity and moy-
ing toward it at a rapid pace;" that he was a reformer
for Catholicism as well as for Protestantism; that the
Reformation was the foe of infidelity and saved the
Christian world from it. But we cannot pursue the topic
in this place. Let it suffice here to interpose a warning
against incautious gencralization.

‘The Reformation, whatever may have been its latent
tendencies and ulterior consequences, was an event within
the domain of religion. From this point of view it must
first, and prior to all speculation upon its indirect and re
mote results, be contemplated.

‘What was the fundamental characteristic of this revo-
lution? Before, a vast institution bad been it
between the individual and the objects of religious faith
and hope. The Reformation changed all this; it opened
to the individual » direct access to the heavenly good of-
fered him in the

The German nations which established themselves on
the ruins of the Roman Empire, received Christianit
with docility. But it was a Christianity, which, though
it retained vital elements of the primitive doctrine, had
become transformed into an external theocracy with ita
priesthood and ceremonies. It was under this mixea
system, this combination of the Gospel with character
istic features of the Judaic dispensation, that the new
nations were trained, Such a type of Christianity had
certain advantages in relation to their uncivilized condition.
Iis externality, its legal character, as well as its goryeous
ritual, gave it a peculiar power over them. But all
through the Middle Ages, whilst the outward, theocratic

1 Lo Réforme, p. dT. 3 TW, pe ADA,

12 THE REFORMATION.

of creed and ritual, new systems of polity, an altered
type of Christian life. On the other hand, it isa great
transaction, in which sovereigns and nations bear a part ;
the occasion of wars and treaties; the close of an old and
the introduction of a new period in the history of culture
and civilization.

The era of the Reformation, if we give to the term
this comprehensive meaning, embraces the interval be-
tween the posting of Luther's Theses, in 1517, and the
conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

—_

16 RISE AND DECLINE OF THE PAPAL HIERARCHY,

as we approach the close of the second century we find
marked changes, some of them of a portentous character
such as indivate that the process of externalizing the
Christian religion and the idea of the Church, lias fairly
set in. The enlargement of the jurisdiction of bishopa
by extending it over dependent churches in the neighbor=
hood of the towns, and the multiplying of church offices,
are changes of lesa moment. But the officers of the Chureh
are more and more assuming the position of a distinct
order, which is placed above the Iaity and is the ap.
pointed medium af conveying to them grace. The con-
ception of a priesthood, after the Old Testament system,
is attaching itself to the Christian ministry. Along with
thia gradual change there is an imperceptible yet grow-
ing from the fundamental doctrine of galva-
tion, as it had been set forth by Paul, and an adoption
of a more legal view, in which faith is identified with doc-
trinal belief. and hence is coupled with works, instead of
being their fruitful source. This doctrinal change and
this attributing of a priostly function and prerogative to
the clergy, were not in any considerable degree the ro-
sult of efforts on the part of Jewish Christians and of
judaizing parties, which had been early overcome and
cast as heretical sects beyond the pale of the Church.
They were rather the product of tendencies in human
nature, which are linble to manifest themselves at any time,
and which serve to account in great part for the tenacious
adherence of the Jewish sectaries to their ritual But
these tendencies were materially aided by the peculiar
sireumstances in which the early Church was placed, of
which the abuse of the Pauline doctrine by Gnostic and
by Antinomian speculations was doubtless one. There
‘were cansee which gave rise at once to the hierarchical
“Yon or doctrine and the hierarchical polity. ‘The perse-
eutiona to which the Charch was subject at the hands of
the Roman government, and still more the great conflict

Pea tein bse ken bee Arie

of Constantinople, As Arianism Was, step by step, dis-
placed by orthodoxy through the conquests of the Franks,
the authority of the Papacy was not proportionately ad-

carried their dominion over Africa and Spain, were ad-
vancing apparently to the conquest of Europe.

‘The fortunate allianes of the Papacy with the Franks
was the event on which its whole medimval history tamed.
‘They counted at their conversion, in the fifth century, only
about five thousand warriors, ‘They gained the aacen-
dency over tho Burgundians and Goths, and thus secured
the victory of the Catholic faith over the Arian type of
Christianity. ‘This alone was an event of signal moment,
in its ultimate bearing on the papal dominion. Then
ander Charles Martel, at Poitiers (732), they defeated the
Moslems who, in their victorious progress, were
Christendom and threatening not only to crush the Pa-

3 Ginsebrecht, Die Denteche Kaiverseit, 1. 92.

» 7 : ’
24 RISE AND DECLINE OF THE PAPAL HIERARCHY.

| was laid for the papal kingdom in Italy by the grants of
Pepin and Charlemagne, a plausible ground was also fur-
nished for the subsequent claim that the Pope, by hia
own authority, had transferred the Empire from the East
to the West, and selected the individual to fill the«
throne In later times the coronation of Charles lent
color to the pretended right of the pontiff to exert a
governing influence in civil not less than in ecclesiastical
affaire.

As tho divisions and conflicts of Charlemagne’s em-
pire after his death tended to exalt the bishops who
were called in to act as umpires among rival aspiranta or
courted for the religious sanction which they could give
to successful ambition, so did this era of disorder tend to
magnify the power of the recognized head of the whole
episcopate. In this period appeared the False or Peoudo-
Tsidorian Decretals, which formulized, to bo sure, ten-
dencies already rife, but still imparted to those tendencies
an anthoritative basis and an augmented strength. The
False Decretals brought forward principles of ecclesiastical
law which made the Church independent of the State
and elevated the Roman See to a position unknown to
preceding ages. The immunity and high prerogatives
of bishops, the exaltation of primates, as the direet instra-
monts of the popes, above metropolitans who were closely
dependent on the secular rulers, and the scription of tha
highest legislative and judicial functions to the Roman
Pontiff, were among the leading features of this spurious
collection, which found its way into the codes of canon
law and radically modified the ancient ecclesiastical gym
tem? ‘There was only needed a pope of sufficient talents
and energy to give practical effect to these new princi

css putt abet Lodeadedey Si
Geochiohte der Entatehong uw. Ausbibihouy dex Kirchenstaater (Leipzig, 184°

Repeal een vol. xxri. (Jan, 1867),

On the date of the Peeado-Ind. Docretals, see Niedner,
» 396, ‘They first appeared shout the middle of the niesh century.

| } =

| |

borrowed light. Acting on this theory, he assumed the
post of arbiter in the contentions of nations, and claimed
the right to dethrone kings at his pleasure. Thus he
‘interposed to decide the disputed imperial election in Ger-
many ; and when Otho IV., the emperor whom he bad
placed in power, proved fulse to his pledges respecting the
papal see, he excommunicated and deposed him, and
ferward Frederic I. in his stead. In his eonfliet
with Jin, King of England, fimocent laid his kingdom
under an interdict, excommunicated him, and finally gave
his dominions to the sovereign of France; and John,
after the most abject humiliation, received them back in
fee from the Pope. In the Church he assumed the char-
acter of universal bishop, under the theory that all epi
copal power was originally deposited in Peter and his
successors, and communicated through this source to
bishops, who were thus only the vicars of the Pope, and
might bo doposcd at will. ‘To him belonged all legis
. lative authority, councils having merely a deliberative
power, while the right to convoke them and to ratify or
annul their proceedings belonged exclusively to him. He
alone was not bound by the laws, and might dispense
with them in the case of others. Even the doctrine of
papal infallibility began to spread, and seems implied, if
not explicitly avowed, in tho teaching of the most eminent
theologian of the age, Thomas Aquinas. The ecclosiag~
tical revolution by which the powers that of old had been
distributed through the Church were now absorbed and
concentrated in the Pope, was annlogous to the political
change in which the feudal system gradually gave place
to monarchy. The right to confirm the appointment of
all bishops, the right even to nominate bishops and te
dispose of all bonefices, the exclusive right of absolution,
canonization, and dispensation, the right to tax Bese
churchos — such were some of the enormous
tHves for the ontincerai of hich papal lap cane

| |

F 34 RISE AND DECLINE OF THE PAPAL HIERARCHY.

unsparing in their treatment of the hierarchy until they
were silenced by the Albigensian crusade, Tn Italy
Dante and Petrarch signalized the beginning of a
national literature by their denunciation of the vices and
ions of the Papacy; while in the prose of
Boceacio the popular religious teachers are a mark for
unbounded ridicule. English poetry begins with con-
and indignant censure of the monka and

kigher clergy, with the boldest manifestations of the
anti-hierarchical tendency. “ Teutonism,” says Milman,
“is now holding its first initiatory struggle with Latin
Christianity.” “The Vision of Piers’ Ploughman,” by
William Langland, which bears the date of 1362, is
from the pen of an earnest reformer who values reason
and conscience as the guides of the soul, and attributes
the sorrows and calamities of the world to the wealth
and worldly temper of the clergy, and especially of the
mendicant orders.* The poem ends with an assertion of
the emall value of popes’ pardons and the superiority of
nrighteous life over trust in indulgences. “ Pieree the
Ploughman's Crede,” is a poem from another hand. and
supposed to have been written in 1894. The poet: intro-
duces a plain man who is acquainted with the rudi-
ments of Christian knowledge and wants to learn his
creed. He applies successively to the four orders of
mendicant friars, who give him no satisfaction, but rail at
each othor, and are absorbed in riches and sensual indul-
gence, Leaving them, he finds an honest plonghman, who
inveighs against the monastic orders and gives him the
instruction which he desires? The author is an avowed

1 Himory of Latin Christianity, viil. 272. In this and tn the three precede
ing chapters, Milman gives an interwsting description of the early vernacular
Wtaratures. In oh. iv. he apeaks of the satirical Latin poems that «prang up
among the clergy and within the wall#of convents

4-The poom is among the pablications ofthe Karly English Text Society. Tt
fo analezed ia the profice of Part I. Text A. See also, Watton, History of
Rnglish Poetry, weet. vii. (vol. ii 44).

aie peels iy isd Sty Neg Tome mee Warton
meet Bx (ile

—

="

40 RISE AND DECLINE OF THE PAPAL HIERARCHY.

Now that the Papacy had become the instrument of
France, this spirit of resistance was naturally quickened.
‘Two important statutes of Edward TI. were the con-
sequence: the statute of provisors, which devolved on
the King the right to fill the Church offices that had
been reserved to the Pope; and the statute of pramu«
nire, which forbade subjects to bring, by direct prosocu-
tion or appeal, before any foreign tribunal, a cause that
fell under the King’s jurisdiction.

Tn this contest of the fourteenth century, “monarchy”
was the watchword of the adversaries of the Papacy, the
symbol of the new generation who were breaking loose
from the dominant ideas of the Middle Ages. “The mon-
archists rose against the papists.”* In France it was the
rights of the throne and its independence of the Chureh
which were maintained by the jurists, and by the school-
men, a8 John of Paris and Occam, who came to their
help. In Germany it was the old imperial rights as de-
fined in the civil law, and as preceding even the existe
ence of the Church, that were defended. In opposition
to the political ideas of his master in theology, Thomas
Aguinas, Dante wrote his noted treatise on monarchy,
in advocacy of Ghibelline principles, against the claima
of the popes to temporal power. Apart from the great
influence of this book, and outside of Ttaly, the question
of the origin of the Empire and the nature of monarchy
in general, led to earnest investigation. In Germany
especially, logists and theologians immersed themselves
in historical and critical inquiries upon the foundation
of civil authority, and the ground on which papal inter
ferences with secular government professed to repose,

+ The Constitutions of Clarendon are fully deserfbed by Reuter, Geachieh'e

Aleannders th. Dritten 1s. d. Kirche diner Zeit., 3 vols. 1800.)
# Grégorovins, vi. 126.

SECULAR SPIRIT OF THE PAPACY. 51

went on widening; so that all Germany, England, Scot-
land, and other countries, started, like giants out of their
* sleep, at the first blast of Luther’s trumpet.” !

1 Table Talk (July 2, 1830). Almost the same statement as to the moral
fall of the Papacy is made by a fair-minded Catholic historian. He traces ite
decline from the Babylonian captivity, through the period of the Reforming
Couneils, and the reign of Ja'ius IT. and the popes of the house of Medicl.
“Bis dabin batten die Paipste durch ihr Vermittleramt iiber den Fiirsten ger
tanden; jetzt aber stellten sie sich denselben gleich und erweckten, durch ihre
Lander- und Kriegalust, Neid und Hass gogen sich. So war die ganze moral-
ache Kraft, wodarch Bom seit vier Jabrhunderten die Welt beherrscht hatte,
‘untergraben, und es bediirfte nur eines kriftigen Storees, um sie ber dor
Haafon sa werfen.”’ J. I, Ritter, Kiechengeachichte, il, 163.

TO SPECIAL CAUSES AND OMENS OF THE kEFORMATION.

‘But the fall of Scholasticism did not take place until it
had ran ita course and lost its vitality. The oasontial
principle of the Schoolmen was the correspondence of
faith and reason ; the characteristic aim was the vindica-
tion of the contents of faith, the articles of the creed,
on grounds of reason, This continued to be the charao-
ter of Scholasticism, although the successors of Anselm
did not, like him, aspire to establish the positive truths of

by arguments independent of revelation.

“ Rides querit intellectum " was ever the motto. There
were individuals, as Abelard in the twelfth century, and
Bacon in the thirteenth, who seem restive under

the yoke of authority, but who really differ from their
contemporaries rather in the tone of their mind than in
their theological tenets, Scholasticism, when it gave u,y
the attempt to verify to the intelligence what faith re-
ceived on the authority of the Church, confessed its own
failure. This transition was made by Duns Scotus, It
was Occam, the pupil of Scotus, by whom the change was
consummated. He was the leading agent in reviving
Nominalism. Although both Wickliffe and Huss were
Realists, it was Nominalism that brought Scholasticiem to
anend. In giving only a subjective validity to general
notions and to reasonings founded on them, in seeking to
show that no settled conclusions can be reached on the
path of rational inquiry and argument, and in leaving no
other warrant for Church dogmas except that of authority,
‘a foundation was laid for scepticism. The way was paved
for the principle which found a distinct expression in tho
fifteenth century, that u thing may be true in theology
and false in philosophy. Occam was a sturdy opponent
of the temporal power of the popes, a defender of the in~
dependence of the civil authority as related to them,
When he suggests propositions at variance with ortho-
doxy and argues for them, he saves himself from the
mputation of heresy by professing an absolute submission

_ ll

84 SPECIAL CAUSES AND OMENS OF THE REFORMATION.

‘These three latent or open species of antagonism to the
medizval spirit were often mingled with one another.
The Mystic and the Humanist might be united in the
same person. The laical spirit in its higher types of mani-
festation was reinforced by the new culture. Satirical
attacks upon absurd ceremonies, upon the follies and sins
of monks and priests, had a keener edge, as well as a
more serious effect, when they emanated from students
familiar with Plautus and Juvenal.

THE PEASANTS’ WAR. 185

against it, this effect was diminished by the outspoken,
strenuous opposition which Luther had made to the ill-
fated enterprise. The Reformation is not responsible for
the Peasants’ War. It would have taken place if the
Protestant doctrines had not been preached; and it was
caused by inveterate abuses for which the ecclesiastical
princes in Germany, by their oxtortions and tyranny,
were chiefly accountab...

iCH IGA.
pil.

erman

PEACE OF AUGSBURG. 169

Thus Protestantism obtained a legal recognition. Dur-
ing the next few years, the Protestant faith rapidly spread
even in Bavaria and Austria. Had it not been for the
Ecclesiastical Reservation, says Gieseler, all Germany
would have soon become Protestant. }

1 Gieseler, rv. i-1 § 11,

—==—=—=4

178 REFORMATION IN BOHEMIA.

greator portion of the Bohemian people ‘The Boho
amians were converted from heathonism by two Groek
monks, Mothodins and Cyril; but the power of the Gers
mans, coupled with the influence of the Roman see, se=
cured their adhesion to the Latin Church. In the Middle
Ages, however, a struggle took place between the ver-
nacular and the Latin ritual. An application for leave
to use the former was denied in a peremptory manner by
Gregory VII. Underlying the movement of which Huss
was the principal author, was a national and a religious
feeling. The favorers of the Hussite reform were of the
Slavic population ; its opponents were the Germans. The
contest of the two parties in the University of Prague led to
an academical revolution, a change in the constitution of
the University, which gave the preponderance of power
in the conduct of its affairs to the natives. Hence, the
German students left in a body ; and out of this great
exodus arose the University of Leipsic. ‘The effect of
this neademical quarrel was to’ establish the ascendency |
of Huss and his followers, While the Council of Con-
atance was in session, Jacobellus, priest of the Church of
St. Michael at Pragne, began to administer the eup to
the laity ; and the practice obtained the sanction of Huss
himself. The cup had been originally withdrawn from
laymen, not with the design to confer a new distinction
upon the priestly order, but simply from reverence for
the sacramental wine, which was often spilled in the
distribution of it through an assembly." The custom,
once established, became a fixed rule in the Church, and
contributed to enhance ill further the dignity of the
eacerdotal class. Thomas Aquinas aided in

the innovation by inculcating the doctrine of oaspataceand |
pax eine Sabre whol Cen ae |
‘ ,
Lanfaay Ta, de ts Bue wd insted Cnc Te Bude, Bouche Ge
whishte d, Gegenreformat. i

in Boh men (1850), i
© Gleseler, Dogmengeachiohte, p. O42.

L — |

PREVALENCE OF PROTESTANTISM. 191

II. Only three magnates remained in the old Church.
But Hungary was to furnish a field on which the Catholic
Reaction, under the management of the Jesuits, would
exert its power with marked success.!

1 At an early date, there were numerous followers of Luther in the Nether-

lends; but it will be more convenient to narrate the progress of Protestantiam
tm other countries, after describing the rise of Calvinism

CALVINISM AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 244

Calvinism and Romanism are the antipodes of each
other, Yet, it is curious to observe that the effect of
these opposite systems upon the attitude of men towards
the civil authority, has often been not dissimilar. But
the Calvinist, unlike the Romanist, dispenses with a hu-
man priesthood, which has not only often proved a power-
ful direct auxiliary to temporal rulers, but has educated
the sentiments to a habit of subjection, which renders
mbmission to such rulers more facile, and leas easv to
shake off.

8

‘THE MEASURES OF ALVA.

fold. Persons were condemned for singing the songs of the
@ueux, or for attending a Calvinistic burial years before ;
ono for saying that in Spain, also, the new doctrine would
spread; and another for saying that one must obey God
rather than man. Finally, on the 16th of February,
1568, all the inhabitants of the Netherlands, with a few
exceptions that were named, were actually condemned to

His brother, Lonis of Nasewu, entered Friesland, in April,
1568, at the head of an army, and gained a victory over
the forces commanded by Count Aremberg. In ordor to
strike terror and to secure himself in the rear, Alva hur-
ried through the process against Egmont and Horn, and
they were beheaded in the great square at Brussels. Alva
then marched against the army of Louis, which he de-
feated and dispersed. He succeeded, also, by avoiding a
combat, in baffling William, whose army was composed of
materials that could not long be kept together. The rnlé
of Alva was the more firmly established by the unsne-
eessfal attempts to overthrow it, and he pursued for several
yeurs longer his murderous work, The entire number of
homicides ander his administration, he reckoned
ae ‘at eighteen thousand. Maultitudes emigrated from
the country; manufactorics were deserted, and business
owas paralyzed. In 1569, he determined to put in opera-
tion « system of taxation that should fill the coffers of the
King. He ordained that an extraordinary tax should be
Tevied, of one per cent. on property of all kinds; and that
@ permanent tax should be paid, of five per cent, on every
wale of real estate, and ten por cont. on overy salo of mor-
chandise. This scheme, as ill calculated for its end as it
was barbarous in its oppressiveness, raised such a storm of
vpposition, that Alva himself was moved to make a com-
promise, which consisted in postponing the execution af it
tor two years. His enemies, Granvelle and others, were

———

LIBERALS AND CALVINISTS. 815

and each congregation being governed according to the
Presbyterian order. The germs of the Arminian contro-
versy are obvious in the last quarter of the sixteenth cen-
tury. The party which called for full toleration, and
were impatient of strict creeds and a rigid discipline, con-
tended, also, for the union of Church and State. The
Spanish persecution confirmed the Liberals in the fear
that the Church would subject the State to an ecclesias-
tical tyranny ; it confirmed the Calvinists in the fear that
the State would subject the Church to a political des-
potism.

‘THE SECTARIAN SPIRIT. ‘549
nominations. The first grent conflict, between the Luther-
ans and the operated to retard the progress

the old Church was to embark on a tempestuous soa, with
no star to guide one’s path. When we consider, from 9
historic point of view, the sectarian divisions of Protes-
tantism, we find that they arose generally from the spirit
of intolerance, and the spirit of faction; two tempers of
feoling which have an identical root, since both grow out
of a disposition to push to an extreme, even to the point
of exelusion and separation, religious opinions which may
be tho property of an individual or of 1 class, but are not
fundamental to the Christian faith, Protestants, having
rejected the external criteria of a true Church, on which
Roman Catholics insist, have sometimes hastily inferred
moral right on the part of any number of Christians
to found new Church associations at their pleasure. This
has actually been done, with little insight into the design
of the visible Church and into its nature as a coun-
terpart of the Church invisible. Coupled with this pro-
en sire and to establish new communions, there
has appewred a tendency to overlook the proper function
of the Church, and to stretch the jurisdiction of the sey-
eral bodies thus formed over the individuals who belong ta
them, in matters both of opinion and practice, to an ex:
tent not warranted by the principles of Chri
Protestantism has sometimes given rise to an ecclesiasti

be

RELIGION AND OULTURE. 558

apon Greek civilization. They feel the error of asceti-
cism so strongly as almost to loathe the Middle Ages.
‘These writers strangely overlook the place of self-denial
in a world where evil has so great a sway; and they
strangely forget that the antique culture, with all its
beautiful products, underwent a terrible shipwreck. The
problem of the reconciliation of religion and culture, and
of the harmonizing of the proper claims of this life and
of the life to come, is one for the solution of which Prot-
estantism has the key.
1 Bee the writings of Taine, paasios.