The failure of attempts to convert the Albigenses by peaceful means led the pope, Innocent III, [9] to preach a crusade against them. Those who entered upon it were promised the usual privileges of crusaders. [10] A series of bloody wars now followed, in the course of which thousands of men, women, and children perished. But the Albigensian sect did not entirely disappear for more than a century, and then only after numberless trials and executions for heresy.
The followers of Peter Waldo, who lived in the twelfth century, made no effort to set up a new religion in Europe. They objected, however, to certain practices of the Church, such as masses for the dead and the adoration of saints. They also condemned the luxury of the clergy and urged that Christians should live like the Apostles, charitable and poor. To the Waldenses the Bible was a sufficient guide to the religious life, and so they translated parts of the scriptures and allowed everyone to preach, without distinction of age, or rank, or sex. The Waldenses spread through many European countries, but being poor and lowly men they did not exert much influence as reformers. The sect survived severe persecution and now forms a branch of the Protestant Church in Italy.
Beliefs very similar to those of the Waldenses were entertained by John Wycliffe, (or Wyclif) master of an Oxford college and a popular preacher. He, too, appealed from the authority of the Church to the authority of the Bible. With the assistance of two friends Wycliffe produced the first English translation of the Scriptures. Manuscript copies of the work had a large circulation, until the government suppressed it. Wycliffe was not molested in life, but the Council of Constance denounced his teaching and ordered that his bones should be dug up, burned, and cast into a stream.
[Illustration: JOHN WYCLIFFEAfter an old print.]
Wycliffe had organized bands of "poor priests" to spread the simple truths of the Bible through all England. They went out, staff in hand and clad in long, russet gowns, and preached to the common people in the English language, wherever an audience could be found. The Lollards, as Wycliffe's followers were known, not only attacked many beliefs and practices of the Church, but also demanded social reforms. For instance, they declared that all wars were sinful and were but plundering and murdering the poor to win glory for kings. The Lollards had to endure much persecution for heresy. Nevertheless their work lived on and sowed in England and Scotland the seeds of the Reformation.
The doctrines of Wycliffe found favor with Anne of Bohemia, wife of King Richard II, [11] and through her they reached that country. Here they attracted the attention of John Huss, (or Hus) a distinguished scholar in the university of Prague. Wycliffe's writings confirmed Huss in his criticism of many doctrines of the Church. He attacked the clergy in sermons and pamphlets and also objected to the supremacy of the pope. The sentence of excommunication pronounced against him did not shake his reforming zeal. Finally Huss was cited to appear before the Council of Constance, then in session. Relying on the safe conduct given him by the German emperor, Huss appeared before the council, only to be declared guilty of teaching "many things evil, scandalous, seditious, and dangerously heretical." The emperor then violated the safe conduct—no promise made to a heretic was considered binding—and allowed Huss to be burnt outside the walls of Constance. Thus perished the man who, more than all others, is regarded as the forerunner of Luther and the Reformation.
The flames which burned Huss set all Bohemia afire. The Bohemians, a Slavic people, regarded him as a national hero and made his martyrdom an excuse for rebelling against the Holy Roman Empire. The Hussite wars, which followed, thus formed a political rather than a religious struggle. The Bohemians did not gain freedom, and their country still remains a Hapsburg possession. But the sense of nationalism is not extinct there, and Bohemia may some day become an independent state.
Though there were many reformers before the Reformation, the beginning of that movement is rightly associated with the name of Martin Luther. He was the son of a German peasant, who, by industry and frugality, had won a small competence. Thanks to his father's self-sacrifice, Luther enjoyed a good education in scholastic philosophy at the university of Erfurt. Having taken the degrees of bachelor and master of arts, Luther began to study law, but an acute sense of his sinfulness and a desire to save his soul soon drove him into a monastery. There he read the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers and found at last the peace of mind he sought. A few years later Luther paid a visit to Rome, which opened his eyes to the worldliness and general laxity of life in the capital of the Papacy. He returned to Germany and became a professor of theology in the university of Wittenberg, newly founded by Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony. Luther's sermons and lectures attracted large audiences, students began to flock to Wittenberg; and the elector grew proud of the rising young teacher who was making his university famous.
[Illustration: MARTIN LUTHERAfter a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger.]
But Luther was soon to emerge from his academic retirement and to become, quite unintentionally, a reformer. In 1517 A.D. there came into the neighborhood of Wittenberg a Dominican friar named Tetzel, granting indulgences for the erection of the new St. Peter's at Rome. [12] An indulgence, according to the teaching of the Church, formed a remission of the temporal punishment, or penance [13] due to sin, if the sinner had expressed his repentance and had promised to atone for his misdeeds. It was also supposed to free the person who received it from some or all of his punishment after death in Purgatory. [14] Indulgences were granted for participation in crusades, pilgrimages, and other good works. Later on they were granted for money, which was expected to be applied to some pious purpose. Many of the German princes opposed this method of raising funds for the Church, because it took so much money out of their dominions. Their sale had also been condemned on religious grounds by Huss and Erasmus.
Luther began his reforming career by an attack upon indulgences. He did not deny their usefulness altogether, but pointed out that they lent themselves to grave abuses. Common people, who could not understand the Latin in which they were written, often thought that they wiped away the penalties of sin, even without true repentance. These criticisms Luther set forth in ninety-five theses or propositions, which he offered to defend against all opponents. In accordance with the custom of medieval scholars, Luther posted his theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, where all might see them. They were composed in Latin, but were at once translated into German, printed, and spread broadcast over Germany. Their effect was so great that before long the sale of indulgences in that country almost ceased.
The scholarly critic of indulgences soon passed into an open foe of the Papacy. Luther found that his theological views bore a close resemblance to those of Wycliffe and John Huss, yet he refused to give them up as heretical. Instead, he wrote three bold pamphlets, in one of which he appealed to the "Christian nobility of the German nation" to rally together against Rome. The pope, at first, had paid little attention to the controversy about indulgences, declaring it "a mere squabble of monks," but he now issued a bull against Luther, ordering him to recant within sixty days or be excommunicated. The papal bull did not frighten Luther or withdraw from him popular support. He burnt it in the market square of Wittenberg, in the presence of a concourse of students and townsfolk. This dramatic answer to the pope deeply stirred all Germany.
The next scene of the Reformation was staged at Worms, at an important assembly, or Diet, of the Holy Roman Empire. The Diet summoned Luther to appear before it for examination, and the emperor, Charles V, gave him a safe conduct. Luther's friends, remembering the treatment of Huss, advised him not to accept the summons, but he declared that he would enter Worms "in the face of the gates of Hell and the powers of the air." In the great hall of the Diet Luther bravely faced the princes, nobles, and clergy of Germany. He refused to retract anything he had written, unless his statements could be shown to contradict the Bible. "It is neither right nor safe to act against conscience," Luther said. "God help me. Amen."
Only one thing remained to do with Luther. He was ordered to return to Wittenberg and there await the imperial edict declaring him a heretic and outlaw. But the elector of Saxony, who feared for Luther's safety, had him carried off secretly to the castle of Wartburg. Here Luther remained for nearly a year, engaged in translating the New Testament into German. There had been many earlier translations into German, but Luther's was the first from the Greek original. His version, simple, forcible, and easy to understand, enjoyed wide popularity and helped to fix for Germans the form of their literary language. Luther afterwards completed a translation of the entire Bible, which the printing press multiplied in thousands of copies throughout Germany.
Though still under the ban of the empire, Luther left the Wartburg in 1522 A.D. and returned to Wittenberg. He lived here, unmolested, until his death, twenty-four years later. During this time he flooded the country with pamphlets, wrote innumerable letters, composed many fine hymns, [15] and prepared a catechism, "a right Bible," said he, "for the laity." Thus Luther became the guide and patron of the reformatory movement which he had started.
The young man who as Holy Roman Emperor presided at the Diet of Worms had assumed the imperial crown only two years previously. A namesake of Charlemagne, Charles V held sway over dominions even more extensive than those which had belonged to the Frankish king. Through his mother, a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, [16] he inherited Spain, Naples, Sicily, and the Spanish possessions in the New World. Through his father, a son of the emperor Maximilian I, he became ruler of Burgundy and the Netherlands and also succeeded to the Austrian territories of the Hapsburgs. Charles was thus the most powerful monarch in Europe.
Charles, as a devout Roman Catholic, had no sympathy for the Reformation. At Worms, on the day following Luther's refusal to recant, the emperor had expressed his determination to stake "all his dominions, his friends, his body and blood, his life and soul" upon the extinction of the Lutheran heresy. This might have been an easy task, had Charles undertaken it at once. But a revolt in Spain, wars with the French king, Francis I, and conflicts with the Ottoman Turks led to his long absence from Germany and kept him from proceeding effectively against the Lutherans, until it was too late.
[Illustration: Map, EUROPE at the Beginning of the Reformation, 1519 A.D.]
The Reformation in Germany appealed to many classes. To patriotic Germans it seemed a revolt against a foreign power—the Italian Papacy. To men of pious mind it offered the attractions of a simple faith which took the Bible as the rule of life. Worldly-minded princes saw in it an opportunity to despoil the Church of lands and revenues. For these reasons Luther's teachings found ready acceptance. Priests married, Luther himself setting the example, monks left their monasteries, and the "Reformed Religion" took the place of Roman Catholicism in most parts of northern and central Germany. South Germany, however, did not fall away from the pope and has remained Roman Catholic to the present time.
[Illustration: CHARLES VA portrait of the emperor at the age of 48, by the Venetian painterTitian.]
Though Germany had now divided into two religious parties, the legal position of Lutheranism remained for a long time in doubt. A Diet held in 1526 A.D. tried to shelve the question by allowing each German state to conduct its religious affairs as it saw fit. But at the next Diet, three years later, a majority of the assembled princes decided that the Edict of Worms against Luther and his followers should be enforced. The Lutheran princes at once issued a vigorous protest against such action. Because of this protest those who separated from the Roman Church came to be called Protestants.
It was not till 1546 A.D., the year of Luther's death, that Charles V felt his hands free to suppress the rising tide of Protestantism. By this time the Lutheran princes had formed a league for mutual protection. Charles brought Spanish troops into Germany and tried to break up the league by force. Civil war raged till 1555 A.D., when both sides agreed to the Peace of Augsburg. It was a compromise. The ruler of each state—Germany then contained over three hundred states—was to decide whether his subjects should be Lutherans or Catholics. Thus the peace by no means established religious toleration, since all Germans had to believe as their prince believed. However, it recognized Lutheranism as a legal religion and ended the attempts to crush the German Reformation.
Meanwhile Luther's doctrines spread into Scandinavian lands. The rulers ofDenmark, Norway, and Sweden closed the monasteries and compelled the RomanCatholic bishops to surrender ecclesiastical property to the crown.Lutheranism became henceforth the official religion of these threecountries.
The Reformation in Switzerland began with the work of Zwingli. He was the contemporary but not the disciple of Luther. From his pulpit in the cathedral of Zurich, Zwingli proclaimed the Scriptures as the sole guide of faith and denied the supremacy of the pope. Many of the Swiss cantons accepted his teaching and broke away from obedience to Rome. Civil war soon followed between Protestants and Roman Catholics, and Zwingli fell in the struggle. After his death the two parties made a peace which allowed each canton to determine its own religion. Switzerland has continued to this day to be part Roman Catholic and part Protestant.
The Protestants in Switzerland did not remain long without a leader. To Geneva came in 1536 A.D. a young Frenchman named Calvin. He had just published hisInstitutes of the Christian Religion, a work which set forth in an orderly, logical manner the main principles of Protestant theology. Calvin also translated the Bible into French and wrote valuable commentaries on nearly all the Scriptural books.
Calvin at Geneva was sometimes called the Protestant pope. During his long residence there he governed the people with a rod of iron. There were no more festivals, no more theaters, no more dancing, music, and masquerades. All the citizens had to attend two sermons on Sunday and to yield at least a lip-assent to the reformer's doctrines. On a few occasions Calvin proceeded to terrible extremities, as when he caused the Spanish physician, Michael Servetus, to be burned to death, because of heretical views concerning the Trinity. Nevertheless, Geneva prospered under Calvin's rule and became a Christian commonwealth, sober and industrious. The city still reveres the memory of the man who founded her university and made her, as it were, the sanctuary of the Reformation.
[Illustration: JOHN CALVIN, after an old print.]
Calvin's influence was not confined to Geneva or even to Switzerland. The men whom he trained and on whom he set the stamp of his stern, earnest, God-fearing character spread Calvinism over a great part of Europe. In Holland and Scotland it became the prevailing type of Protestantism, and in France and England it deeply affected the national life. During the seventeenth century the Puritans carried Calvinism across the sea to New England, where it formed the dominant faith in colonial times.
The Reformation in Germany and Switzerland started as a national and popular movement; in England it began as the act of a despotic sovereign, Henry VIII. This second Tudor [17] was handsome, athletic, finely educated, and very able, but he was also selfish, sensual, and cruel. His father had created a strong monarchy in England by humbling both Parliament and the nobles. When Henry VIII came to the throne, the only serious obstacle in the way of royal absolutism was the Roman Church.
[Illustration: HENRY VIIIAfter a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger.]
Henry showed himself at first a devoted Catholic. He took an amateur's interest in theology and wrote with his own royal pen a book attacking Luther. The pope rewarded him with the title of "Defender of the Faith," a title which English sovereigns still bear. Henry at this time did not question the authority of the Papacy. He even made his chief adviser Cardinal Wolsey, the most conspicuous churchman in the kingdom.
At the beginning of Henry's reign the Church was still strong in England. Probably most of the people were sincerely attached to it. Still, the labors of Wycliffe and the Lollards had weakened the hold of the Church upon the masses, while Erasmus and the Oxford scholars who worked with him, by their criticism of ecclesiastical abuses, had done much to undermine its influence with the intellectual classes. In England, as on the Continent, the worldliness of the Church prepared the way for the Reformation.
The actual separation from Rome arose out of Henry's matrimonial difficulties. He had married a Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon, the aunt of the emperor Charles V and widow of Henry's older brother. The marriage required a dispensation [18] from the pope, because canon law forbade a man to wed his brother's widow. After living happily with Catherine for eighteen years, Henry suddenly announced his conviction that the union was sinful. This, of course, formed simply a pretext for the divorce which Henry desired. Of his children by Catherine only a daughter survived, but Henry wished to have a son succeed him on the throne. Moreover, he had grown tired of Catherine and had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, a pretty maid-in-waiting at the court.
At first Henry tried to secure the pope's consent to the divorce. The pope did not like to set aside the dispensation granted by his predecessor, nor did he wish to offend the mighty emperor Charles V. Failing to get the papal sanction, Henry obtained his divorce from an English court presided over by Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. Anne Boleyn was then proclaimed queen, in defiance of the papal bull of excommunication.
Henry's next step was to procure from his subservient Parliament a series of laws which abolished the pope's authority in England. Of these, the most important was the Act of Supremacy. It declared the English king to be "the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England." At the same time a new treason act imposed the death penalty on anyone who called the king a "heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper." The great majority of the English people seem to have accepted this new legislation without much objection; those who refused to do so perished on the scaffold. The most eminent victim was Sir Thomas More, [19] formerly Henry's Lord Chancellor and distinguished for eloquence and profound learning. His execution sent a thrill of horror through Christendom.
The suppression of the monasteries soon followed the separation from Rome. Henry declared to Parliament that they deserved to be abolished, because of the "slothful and ungodly lives" led by the inmates. In some instances this accusation may have been true, but the real reason for Henry's action was his desire to crush the monastic orders, which supported the pope, and to seize their extensive possessions. The beautiful monasteries were torn down and the lands attached to them were sold for the benefit of the crown or granted to Henry's favorites. The nobles who accepted this monastic wealth naturally became zealous advocates of Henry's anti-papal policy.
[Illustration: RUINS OF MELROSE ABBEY The little town of Melrose in Scotland contains the ruins of a very beautiful monastery church built about the middle of the fifteenth century. The principal part of the present remains is the choir, with slender shafts, richly-carved capitals, and windows of exquisite stone- tracery. The beautiful sculptures throughout the church were defaced at the time of the Reformation. The heart of Robert Bruce is interred near the site of the high altar.]
Though Henry VIII had broken with the Papacy, he remained Roman Catholic in doctrine to the day of his death. Under his successor, Edward VI, the Reformation made rapid progress in England. The young king's guardian allowed reformers from the Continent to come to England, and the doctrines of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were freely preached there. At this time all paintings, statuary, wood carvings, and stained glass were removed from church edifices. The use of tapers, incense, and holy water was also discontinued. In order that religious services might be conducted in the language of the people, Archbishop Cranmer and his co-workers prepared theBook of Common Prayer. It consisted of translations into noble English of various parts of the old Latin service books. With some changes, it is still used in the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States.
The short reign of Mary Tudor, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, was marked by a temporary setback to the Protestant cause. The queen prevailed on Parliament to secure a reconciliation with Rome. She also married her Roman Catholic cousin, Philip of Spain, the son of Charles V. Mary now began a severe persecution of the Protestants. It gained for her the epithet of "Bloody," but it did not succeed in stamping out heresy. Many eminent reformers perished, among them Cranmer, the former archbishop. Mary died childless, after ruling about five years, and the crown passed to Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth. Under Elizabeth Anglicanism again replaced Roman Catholicism as the religion of England.
The Reformation was practically completed before the close of the sixteenth century. In 1500 A.D. the Roman Church embraced all Europe west of Russia and the Balkan peninsula. By 1575 A.D. nearly half of its former subjects had renounced their allegiance. The greater part of Germany and Switzerland and all of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland, England, and Scotland became independent of the Papacy. The unity of western Christendom, which had been preserved throughout the Middle Ages, thus disappeared and has not since been revived.
[Illustration: Map, EXTENT OF THE REFORMATION, 1524-1572 A.D.]
The reformers agreed in substituting for the authority of popes and church councils the authority of the Bible. They went back fifteen hundred years to the time of the Apostles and tried to restore what they believed to be Apostolic Christianity. Hence they rejected such doctrines and practices as were supposed to have developed during the Middle Ages. The Reformation also abolished the monastic system and priestly celibacy. The sharp distinction between clergy and laity disappeared, for priests married, lived among the people, and no longer formed a separate class. In general, Protestantism affirmed the ability of every man to find salvation without the aid of ecclesiastics. The Church was no longer the only "gate of heaven."
[Illustration: CHAINED BIBLEIn the church of St. Crux, York.]
But the Protestant idea of authority led inevitably to differences of opinion among the reformers. There were various ways of interpreting that Bible to which they appealed as the rule of faith and conduct. Consequently, Protestantism split up into many sects or denominations, and these have gone on multiplying to the present day. Nearly all, however, are offshoots from the three main varieties of Protestantism which appeared in the sixteenth century.
Lutheranism and Anglicanism presented some features in common. Both were state churches, supported by the government; both had a book of common prayer; and both recognized the sacraments of baptism, the eucharist, and confirmation. The Church of England also kept the sacrament of ordination. The Lutheran churches in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as well as the Church of England, likewise retained the episcopate.
Calvinism departed much more widely from Roman Catholicism. It did away with the episcopate and had only one order of clergy—the presbyters. [20] It provided for a very simple form of worship. In a Calvinistic church the service consisted of Bible reading, a sermon, extemporaneous prayers, and hymns sung by the congregation. The Calvinists kept only two sacraments, baptism and the eucharist. They regarded the first, however, as a simple undertaking to bring up the child in a Christian manner, and the second as merely a commemoration of the Last Supper.
The break with Rome did not introduce religious liberty into Europe. Nothing was further from the minds of Luther, Calvin, and other reformers than the toleration of Reformation beliefs unlike their own. The early Protestant sects punished dissenters as zealously as the Roman Church punished heretics. Lutherans burned the followers of Zwingli in Germany, Calvin put Servetus to death, and the English government, in the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, executed many Roman Catholics. Complete freedom of conscience and the right of private judgment in religion have been secured in most European countries only within the last hundred years.
The Reformation, however, did deepen the moral life of European peoples. The faithful Protestant or Roman Catholic vied with his neighbor in trying to show that his particular belief made for better living than any other. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in consequence, were more earnest and serious, if also more bigoted, than the centuries of the Renaissance.
The rapid spread of Protestantism soon brought about a Catholic Counter Reformation in those parts of Europe which remained faithful to Rome. The popes now turned from the cultivation of Renaissance art and literature to the defense of their threatened faith. They made needed changes in the papal court and appointed to ecclesiastical offices men distinguished for virtue and learning. This reform of the Papacy dates from the time of Paul III, who became pope in 1534 A.D. He opened the college of cardinals to Roman Catholic reformers, even offering a seat in it to Erasmus. Still more important was his support of the famous Society of Jesus, which had been established in the year of his accession to the papal throne.
The founder of the new society was a Spanish nobleman, Ignatius Loyola. He had seen a good deal of service in the wars of Charles V against the French. While in a hospital recovering from a wound Loyola read devotional books, and these produced a profound change within him. He now decided to abandon the career of arms and to become, instead, the knight of Christ. So Loyola donned a beggar's robe, practiced all the kinds of asceticism which his books described, and went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The turning-point of his career came with his visit to Paris to study theology. Here Loyola met the six devout and talented men who became the first members of his society. They intended to work as missionaries among the Moslems, but, when this plan fell through, they visited Rome and placed their energy and enthusiasm at the disposal of the pope.
[Illustration: ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA]
Loyola's military training deeply affected the character of the new order. The Jesuits, as their Protestant opponents styled them, were to be an army of spiritual soldiers, living under the strictest obedience to their head, or general. Like soldiers, again, they were to remain in the world, and there fight manfully for the Church and against heretics. The society grew rapidly; before Loyola's death it included over a thousand members; and in the seventeenth century it became the most influential of all the religious orders. [21] The activity of the Jesuits as preachers, confessors, teachers, and missionaries did much to roll back the rising tide of Protestantism in Europe.
The Jesuits gave special attention to education, for they realized the importance of winning over the young people to the Church. Their schools were so good that even Protestant children often attended them. The popularity of Jesuit teachers arose partly from the fact that they always tried to lead, not drive their pupils. Light punishments, short lessons, many holidays, and a liberal use of prizes and other distinctions formed some of the attractive features of their system of training. It is not surprising that the Jesuits became the instructors of the Roman Catholic world. They called their colleges the "fortresses of the faith."
The missions of the Jesuits were not less important than their schools. The Jesuits worked in Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and other countries where Protestantism threatened to become dominant. Then they invaded all the lands which the great maritime discoveries of the preceding age had laid open to European enterprise. In India, China, the East Indies, Japan, the Philippines, Africa, and the two Americas their converts from heathenism were numbered by hundreds of thousands.
The most eminent of all Jesuit missionaries, St. Francis Xavier, had belonged to Loyola's original band. He was a little, blue-eyed man, an engaging preacher, an excellent organizer, and possessed of so attractive a personality that even the ruffians and pirates with whom he had to associate on his voyages became his friends. Xavier labored with such devotion and success in the Portuguese colonies of the Far East as to gain the title of "Apostle to the Indies." He also introduced Christianity in Japan, where it flourished until a persecuting emperor extinguished it with fire and sword.
Another agency in the Counter Reformation was the great Church Council summoned by Pope Paul III. The council met at Trent, on the borders of Germany and Italy. It continued, with intermissions, for nearly twenty years. The Protestants, though invited to participate, did not attend, and hence nothing could be done to bring them back within the Roman Catholic fold. This was the last general council of the Church for over three hundred years. [22]
The Council of Trent made no essential changes in the Roman Catholic doctrines, which remained as St. Thomas Aquinas [23] and other theologians had set them forth in the Middle Ages. In opposition to the Protestant view, it declared that the tradition of the Church possessed equal authority with the Bible. It reaffirmed the supremacy of the pope over Christendom. The council also passed important decrees forbidding the sale of ecclesiastical offices and requiring bishops and other prelates to attend strictly to their duties. Since the Council of Trent the Roman Church has been distinctly a religious organization, instead of both a secular and religious body, as was the Church in the Middle Ages. [24]
The council, before adjourning, authorized the pope to draw up a list, or Index, of works which Roman Catholics might not read. This action did not form an innovation. The Church from an early day had condemned and destroyed heretical writings. However, the invention of printing, by giving greater currency to new and dangerous ideas, increased the necessity for the regulation of thought. The "Index of Prohibited Books" still exists, and additions to the list are made from time to time. It was matched by the strict censorship of printing long maintained in Protestant countries.
Still another agency of the Counter Reformation consisted of the Inquisition. This was a system of church courts for the discovery and punishment of heretics. Such courts had been set up in the Middle Ages, for instance, to suppress the Albigensian heresy. After the Council of Trent they redoubled their activity, especially in Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain.
The Inquisition probably contributed to the disappearance of Protestantism in Italy. In the Netherlands, where it worked with great severity, it only aroused exasperation and hatred and helped to provoke a successful revolt of the Dutch people. The Spaniards, on the other hand, approved of the methods of the Inquisition and welcomed its extermination of Moors and Jews, as well as Protestant heretics. The Spanish Inquisition was not abolished till the nineteenth century.
In 1555 A.D., the year of the Peace of Augsburg, [25] Charles V determined to abdicate his many crowns and seek the repose of a monastery. The plan was duly carried into effect. His brother Ferdinand I succeeded to the title of Holy Roman Emperor and the Austrian territories, while his son, Philip II, [26] received the Spanish possessions in Italy, the Netherlands, and America. There were now two branches of the Hapsburg family—one in Austria and one in Spain.
The new king of Spain was a man of unflagging energy, strong will, and deep attachment to the Roman Church. As a ruler he had two great ideals: to make Spain the foremost state in the world and to secure the triumph of the Roman Catholic faith over Protestantism. His efforts to realize these ideals largely determined European history during the second half of the sixteenth century.
[Illustration: PHILIP IIAfter the portrait by Titian.]
The Spanish monarch won renown by becoming the champion of Christendom against the Ottoman Turks. At this time the Turks had a strong navy, by means of which they captured Cyprus from the Venetians and ravaged Sicily and southern Italy. Grave danger existed that they would soon control all the Mediterranean. To stay their further progress one of the popes preached what was really the last crusade. The fleets of Genoa and Venice united with those of Spain and under Don John of Austria, Philip's half- brother, totally defeated the Turkish squadron in the gulf of Lepanto, off the western coast of Greece. The battle gave a blow to the sea-power of the Turks from which they never recovered and ended their aggressive warfare in the Mediterranean. Lepanto is one of the proud names in the history of Spain.
Philip had inherited an extensive realm. He further widened it by the annexation of Portugal, thus completing the unification of the Spanish peninsula. The Portuguese colonies in Africa, Asia, and America also passed into Spanish hands. The union of Spain and Portugal under one crown never commanded any affection among the Portuguese, who were proud of their nationality and of their achievements as explorers and empire- builders. Portugal separated from Spain in 1640 A.D. and has since remained an independent state.
[Illustration: THE ESCORIAL This remarkable edifice, at once a convent, a church, a palace, and a royal mausoleum, is situated in a sterile and gloomy wilderness about twenty-seven miles from Madrid. It was begun by Philip II in 1563 A.D. and was completed twenty-one years later. The Escorial is dedicated to St. Lawrence, that saint's day (August 10, 1557) being the day when the Spanish king won a great victory over the French at the battle of St. Quentin. The huge dimensions of the Escorial may be inferred from the fact that it includes eighty-six staircases, eighty-nine fountains, fifteen cloisters, 1,200 doors, 2,600 windows, and miles of corridors. The building material is a granite-like stone obtained in the neighborhood. The Escorial contains a library of rare books and manuscripts and a collection of valuable paintings. In the royal mausoleum under the altar of the church lie the remains of Charles V, Philip II, and many of their successors.]
But the successes of Philip were more than offset by his failures. Though he had vast possessions, enormous revenues, mighty fleets, and armies reputed the best of the age, he could not dominate western Europe. His attempt to conquer England, a stronghold of Protestantism under Elizabeth, resulted in disaster. Not less disastrous was his life-long struggle with the Netherlands.
The seventeen provinces of the Netherlands occupied the flat, low country along the North Sea—the Holland, Belgium, and northern France of the present day. During the fifteenth century they became Hapsburg possessions and thus belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. As we have learned, Charles V received them as a part of his inheritance, and he, in turn, transmitted them to Philip II.
The inhabitants of the Netherlands were not racially united. In the southernmost provinces Celtic blood and Romance speech prevailed, while farther north dwelt peoples of Teutonic extraction, who spoke Flemish and Dutch. Each province likewise kept its own government and customs. The prosperity which had marked the Flemish cities during the Middle Ages [27] extended in the sixteenth century to the Dutch cities also. Rotterdam, Leyden, Utrecht, and Amsterdam profited by the geographical discoveries and became centers of extensive commerce with Asia and America. The rise of the Dutch power, in a country so exposed to destructive inundations of both sea and rivers, is a striking instance of what can be accomplished by a frugal, industrious population.
The Netherlands were too near Germany not to be affected by the Reformation. Lutheranism soon appeared there, only to encounter the hostility of Charles V, who introduced the terrors of the Inquisition. Many heretics were burned at the stake, or beheaded, or buried alive. But there is no seed like martyr's blood. The number of Protestants swelled, rather than lessened, especially after Calvinism entered the Netherlands. As a Jesuit historian remarked, "Nor did the Rhine from Germany or the Meuse from France send more water into the Low Countries than by the one the contagion of Luther, and by the other that of Calvin, were imported into these provinces."
In spite of the cruel treatment of heretics by Charles V, both Flemish and Dutch remained loyal to the emperor, because he had been born and reared among them and always considered their country as his own. But Philip II, a Spaniard by birth and sympathies, seemed to them only a foreign master. The new ruler did nothing to conciliate the people. He never visited the Netherlands after 1559 A.D., but governed them despotically through Spanish officials supported by Spanish garrisons. Arbitrary taxes were levied, cities and nobles were deprived of their cherished privileges, and the activity of the Inquisition was redoubled. Philip intended to exercise in the Netherlands the same absolute power which he enjoyed in Spain.
The religious persecution which by Philip's orders raged through the Netherlands everywhere aroused intense indignation. The result was rioting by mobs of Protestants, who wrecked churches and monasteries and carried off the treasure they found in them. Philip replied to these acts by sending his best army, under the duke of Alva, his best general, to reduce the turbulent provinces into submission.
Alva carried out with thoroughness the policy of his royal master. A tribunal, popularly known as the "Council of Blood," was set up for the punishment of treason and heresy. Hundreds, and probably thousands, perished; tens of thousands fled to Germany and England. Alva, as governor-general, also raised enormous taxes, which threatened to destroy the trade and manufactures of the Netherlands. Under these circumstances Roman Catholics and Protestants, nobles and townsfolk, united against their Spanish oppressors. A revolt began which Spain could never quell.
The Netherlands found a leader in William, Prince of Orange, later known as William the Silent, because of his customary discreetness. He was of German birth, a convert to Protestantism, and the owner of large estates in the Netherlands. William had fair ability as a general, a statesmanlike grasp of the situation, and above all a stout, courageous heart which never wavered in moments of danger and defeat. To rescue the Netherlands from Spain he sacrificed his high position, his wealth, and eventually his life.
[Illustration: WILLIAM THE SILENT]
The ten southern provinces of the Netherlands, mainly Roman Catholic in population, soon effected a reconciliation with Philip and returned to their allegiance. They remained in Hapsburg hands for over two centuries. Modern Belgium has grown out of them. The seven northern provinces, where Dutch was the language and Protestantism the religion, formed in 1579 A.D. the Union of Utrecht. Two years later they declared their independence of Spain. Thus the republic of the United Netherlands, often known as Holland, the most important of the seven provinces, came into being.
[Illustration: Map, THE NETHERLANDS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
The struggle of the Dutch for freedom forms one of the most notable episodes in history. At first they were no match for the disciplined Spanish soldiery, but they fought bravely behind the walls of their cities and on more than one occasion repelled the enemy by cutting the dikes and letting in the sea. Though William the Silent perished in a dark hour by an assassin's bullet, the contest continued. England now came to the aid of the hard-pressed republic with money and a small army. Philip turned upon his new antagonist and sent against England the great fleet called the "Invincible Armada." Its destruction interfered with further attempts to subjugate the Dutch, but the Spanish monarch, stubborn to the last, refused to acknowledge their independence. His successor, in 1609 A.D., consented to a twelve years' truce with the revolted provinces. Their freedom was recognized officially by Spain at the close of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 A.D.
The long struggle bound the Dutch together and made them one nation. During the seventeenth century they took a prominent part in European affairs. The republic which they founded ought to be of special interest to Americans, for many features of our national government are Dutch in origin. To Holland we owe the idea of a declaration of independence, of a written constitution, of religious toleration, and of a comprehensive school system supported by taxation. In these and other matters the Dutch were pioneers of modern democracy.
Queen Elizabeth, who reigned over England during the period of the Dutch revolt, came to the throne when about twenty-five years old. She was tall and commanding in presence and endowed with great physical vigor and endurance. After hunting all day or dancing all night she could still attend unremittingly to public business. Elizabeth had received an excellent education; she spoke Latin and several modern languages; knew a little Greek; and displayed some skill in music. To her father, Henry VIII, she doubtless owed her tactfulness and charm of manner, as well as her imperious will; she resembled her mother, Anne Boleyn, in her vanity and love of display. As a ruler Elizabeth was shrewd, far-sighted, a good judge of character, and willing to be guided by the able counselors who surrounded her. Above all, Elizabeth was an ardent patriot. She understood and loved her people, and they, in turn, felt a chivalrous devotion to the "Virgin Queen," to "Good Queen Bess".
The daughter of Anne Boleyn had been born under the ban of the pope, so that opposition to Rome was the natural course for her to pursue. Two acts of Parliament now separated England once more from the Papacy and gave the English Church practically the form and doctrines which it retains to-day. The church was intended to include everyone in England, and hence all persons were required to attend religious exercises on Sundays and holy days. Refusal to do so exposed the offender to a fine.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH]
The great body of the people soon conformed to the state church, but Roman Catholics could not conscientiously attend its services. The laws against them do not seem to have been strictly enforced at first, but in the later years of Elizabeth's reign real or suspected plots by Roman Catholics against her throne led to a policy of repression. Those who said or heard mass were heavily fined and imprisoned; those who brought papal bulls into England or converted Protestants to Roman Catholicism were executed as traitors. Several hundred priests, mostly Jesuits, suffered death, and many more languished in jail. This persecution, however necessary it may have seemed to Elizabeth and her advisers, is a blot on her reign.
The Reformation made little progress in Ireland. Henry VIII, who had extended English sway over most of the island, suppressed the monasteries, demolished shrines, relics, and images, and placed English-speaking priests in charge of the churches. The Irish people, who remained loyal to Rome, regarded these measures as the tyrannical acts of a foreign government. During Elizabeth's reign there were several dangerous revolts, which her generals suppressed with great cruelty. The result was to widen the breach between England and Ireland. Henceforth to most Irishmen patriotism became identified with Roman Catholicism.
[Illustration: SILVER CROWN OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN]
Many of the plots against Elizabeth centered about Mary Stuart, the ill- starred Queen of Scots. She was a granddaughter of Henry VII, and extreme Roman Catholics claimed that she had a better right to the English throne than Elizabeth, because the pope had declared the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn null and void. Mary, a fervent Roman Catholic, did not please her Scotch subjects, who had adopted Calvinistic doctrines. She also discredited herself by marrying the man who had murdered her former husband. An uprising of the Scottish nobles compelled Mary to abdicate the throne in favor of her infant son [28] and to take refuge in England. Elizabeth kept her rival in captivity for nearly twenty years. In 1586 A.D., the former queen was found guilty of conspiring against Elizabeth's life and was beheaded.
[Illustration: Map, WESTERN EUROPE IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH]
[Illustration: LONDON BRIDGE IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH The old structure was completed early in the thirteenth century. It measured 924 feet in length and had 20 narrow arches. Note the rows of houses and shops on the bridge, the chapel in the center and the gate above which the heads of traitors were exhibited on pikes. The present London Bridge was completed in 1831 A.D.]
Philip II, the king of Spain, also threatened Elizabeth's security. At the outset of her reign Philip had made her an offer of marriage, but she refused to give herself, or England, a Spanish master. As time went on, Philip turned into an open enemy of the Protestant queen and did his best to stir up sedition among her Roman Catholic subjects. It must be admitted that Philip could plead strong justification for his attitude. Elizabeth allowed the English "sea dogs" [29] to plunder Spanish colonies and seize Spanish vessels laden with the treasure of the New World. Moreover, she aided the rebellious Dutch, at first secretly and at length openly, in their struggle against Spain. Philip put up with these aggressions for many years, but finally came to the conclusion that he could never subdue the Netherlands or end the piracy and smuggling in Spanish America without first conquering England. The execution of Mary Stuart removed his last doubts, for Mary had left him her claims to the English throne. He at once made ready to invade England. Philip seems to have believed that as soon as a Spanish army landed in the island, the Roman Catholics would rally to his cause. But the Spanish king never had a chance to verify his belief; the decisive battle took place on the sea.
Philip had not completed his preparations before Sir Francis Drake sailed into Cadiz harbor and destroyed a vast amount of naval stores and shipping. This exploit, which Drake called "singeing the king of Spain's beard," delayed the expedition for a year. The "Invincible Armada" [30] set out at last in 1588 A.D. The Spanish vessels, though somewhat larger than those of the English, were inferior in number, speed, and gunnery to their adversaries, while the Spanish officers, mostly unused to the sea, were no match for men like Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh, the best mariners of the age. The Armada suffered severely in a nine-days fight in the Channel, and many vessels which escaped the English guns met shipwreck off the Scotch and Irish coasts. Less than half of the Armada returned in safety to Spain.
[Illustration: THE SPANISH ARMADA IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL. After an engraving by the Society of Antiquarians following a tapestry in the House of Lords.]
England in the later Middle Ages had been an important naval power, as her ability to carry on the Hundred Years' War in France amply proved. But in the sixteenth century she was greatly over-matched by Spain, especially after the annexation of Portugal added the naval forces of that country to the Spanish fleets. The defeat of the Armada not only did great harm to the navy and commerce of Spain; it also showed that a new people had arisen to claim the supremacy of the ocean. Henceforth the English began to build up what was to be a sea-power greater than any other known to history.
By 1500 A.D. France had become a centralized state under a strong monarchy. [31] Francis I, who reigned in the first half of the sixteenth century, still further exalted the royal power. He had many wars with Charles V, whose extensive dominions nearly surrounded the French kingdom. These wars prevented the emperor from making France a mere dependency of Spain. As we have learned, [32] they also interfered with the efforts of Charles V to crush the Protestants in Germany.
Protestantism in France dates from the time of Francis I. The Huguenots, [33] as the French Protestants were called, naturally accepted the doctrines of Calvin, who was himself a Frenchman and whose books were written in the French language. Though bitterly persecuted by Francis I and by his son Henry II (1547-1559 A.D.), the Huguenots gained a large following, especially among the prosperous middle class of the towns—thebourgeoisie. Many nobles also became Huguenots, sometimes because of religious conviction, but often because the new movement offered them an opportunity to recover their feudal independence and to plunder the estates of the Church. In France, as well as in Germany, the Reformation had its worldly side.
During most of the second half of the sixteenth century fierce conflicts raged in France between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots. Philip II aided the former and Queen Elizabeth gave some assistance to the latter. France suffered terribly in the struggle, not only from the constant fighting, which cost the lives, it is said, of more than a million people, but also from the pillage, burnings, and other barbarities in which both sides indulged. The wealth and prosperity of the country visibly declined, and all patriotic feeling disappeared in the hatreds engendered by a civil war.
The episode known as the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day illustrates the extremes to which political ambition and religious bigotry could lead. The massacre was an attempt to extirpate the Huguenots, root and branch, at a time when peace prevailed between them and their opponents. The person primarily responsible for it was Catherine de' Medici, mother of Charles IX (1560-1574 A.D.), the youthful king of France. Charles had begun to cast off the sway of his mother and to come under the influence of Admiral de Coligny, the most eminent of the Huguenots. To regain her power Catherine first tried to have Coligny murdered. When the plot failed, she invented the story of a great Huguenot uprising and induced her weak- minded son to authorize a wholesale butchery of Huguenots. It began in Paris in the early morning of August 24, 1572 A.D. (St. Bartholomew's Day), and extended to the provinces, where it continued for several weeks. Probably ten thousand Huguenots were slain, including Coligny himself. But the deed was a blunder as well as a crime. The Huguenots took up arms to defend themselves, and France again experienced all the horrors of internecine strife.
The death of Coligny transferred the leadership of the Huguenots to Henry Bourbon, king of Navarre. [34] Seventeen years after the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, he inherited the French crown as Henry IV. The Roman Catholics would not accept a Protestant ruler and continued the conflict. Henry soon realized that only his conversion to the faith of the majority of his subjects would bring a lasting peace. Religious opinions had always sat lightly upon him, and he found no great difficulty in becoming a Roman Catholic. "Paris," said Henry, "was well worth a mass." Opposition to the king soon collapsed, and the Huguenot wars came to an end.
Though now a Roman Catholic, Henry did not break with the Huguenots. In 1598 A.D. he issued in their interest the celebrated Edict of Nantes. By its terms the Huguenots were to enjoy freedom of private worship everywhere in France, and freedom to worship publicly in a large number of villages and towns. Only Roman Catholic services, however, might be held in Paris and at the royal court. Though the edict did not grant complete religious liberty, it marked an important step in that direction. A great European state now for the first time recognized the principle that two rival faiths might exist side by side within its borders. The edict was thus the most important act of toleration since the age of Constantine. [35]
Having settled the religious difficulties, Henry could take up the work of restoring prosperity to distracted France. His interest in the welfare of his subjects gained for him the name of "Good King Henry." With the help of Sully, his chief minister, the king reformed the finances and extinguished the public debt. He opened roads, built bridges, and dug canals, thus aiding the restoration of agriculture. He also encouraged commerce by means of royal bounties for shipbuilding. The French at this time began to have a navy and to compete with the Dutch and English for trade on the high seas. Henry's work of renovation was cut short in 1610 A.D. by an assassin's dagger. Under his son Louis XIII (1610-1643 A.D.), a long period of disorder followed, until an able minister, Cardinal Richelieu, assumed the guidance of public affairs. Richelieu for many years was the real ruler of France. His foreign policy led to the intervention of that country in the international conflict known as the Thirty Years' War.
[Illustration: CARDINAL RICHELIEU (Louvre, Paris.)After the portrait by the Belgian artist, Philippe de Champaigne.]
The Peace of Augsburg [36] gave repose to Germany for more than sixty years, but it did not form a complete settlement of the religious question in that country. There was still room for bitter disputes, especially over the ownership of Church property which had been secularized in the course of the Reformation. Furthermore, the peace recognized only Roman Catholics and Lutherans and gave no rights whatever to the large body of Calvinists. The failure of Lutherans and Calvinists to cooperate weakened German Protestantism just at the period when the Counter Reformation inspired Roman Catholicism with fresh energy and enthusiasm.
Politics, as well as religion, also helped to bring about the great conflagration. The Roman Catholic party relied for support on the Hapsburg emperors, who wished to unite the German states under their control, thus restoring the Holy Roman Empire to its former proud position in the affairs of Europe. The Protestant princes, on the other hand, wanted to become independent sovereigns. Hence they resented all efforts to extend the imperial authority over them.
The Thirty Years' War was not so much a single conflict as a series of conflicts, which ultimately involved nearly all western Europe. It began in Bohemia, where Protestantism had not been extinguished by the Hussite wars. [37] The Bohemian nobles, many of whom were Calvinists, revolted against Hapsburg rule and proclaimed the independence of Bohemia. The German Lutherans gave them no aid, however, and the emperor, Ferdinand II, easily put down the insurrection. Many thousands of Protestants were now driven into exile. Those who remained in Bohemia were obliged to accept Roman Catholicism. Thus one more country was lost to Protestantism.
The failure of the Bohemian revolt aroused the greatest alarm in Germany.Ferdinand threatened to follow in the footsteps of Charles V and to crushProtestantism in the land of its birth. When, therefore, the king ofDenmark, who as duke of Holstein had great interest in German affairs,decided to intervene, both Lutherans and Calvinists supported him. ButWallenstein, the emperor's able general, proved more than a match for theDanish king, who at length withdrew from the contest.
So far the Roman Catholic and imperial party had triumphed. Ferdinand's success led him to issue the Edict of Restitution, which compelled the Protestants to restore all the Church property which they had taken since the Peace of Augsburg. The enforcement of the edict brought about renewed resistance on the part of the Protestants.
There now appeared the single heroic figure on the stage of the Thirty Years' War. This was Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and a man of military genius. He had the deepest sympathy for his fellow-Protestants in Germany and regarded himself as their divinely appointed deliverer. By taking part in the war Gustavus also hoped to conquer the coast of northern Germany. The Baltic would then become a Swedish lake, for Sweden already possessed Finland and what are now the Russian provinces on the Baltic.
[Illustration: GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUSAfter the portrait by the Flemish artist, Sir Anthony Van Dyck.]
Gustavus entered Germany with a strong force of disciplined soldiers and tried to form alliances with the Protestant princes. They received him coolly at first, for the Swedish king seemed to them only a foreign invader. Just at this time the imperialists captured Magdeburg, the largest and most prosperous city in northern Germany. At least twenty thousand of the inhabitants perished miserably amid the smoking ruins of their homes. This massacre turned Protestant sentiment toward Gustavus as the "Lion of the North" who had come to preserve Germany from destruction. With the help of his allies Gustavus reconquered most of Germany for the Protestants, but he fell at the battle of Lützen in the moment of victory. His work, however, was done. The Swedish king had saved the cause of Protestantism in Germany.
After the death of Gustavus the war assumed more and more a political character. The German Protestants found an ally, strangely enough, in Cardinal Richelieu, the all-powerful minister of the French king. Richelieu entered the struggle in order to humble the Austrian Hapsburgs and extend the boundaries of France toward the Rhine, at the expense of the Holy Roman Empire. Since the Spanish Hapsburgs were aiding their Austrian kinsmen, Richelieu naturally fought against Spain also. The war thus became a great international conflict in which religion played only a minor part. The Holy Roman Emperor had to yield at last and consented to the treaties of peace signed at two cities in the province of Westphalia.
[Illustration: Map, EUROPE at the End of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 A.D.]
The Peace of Westphalia ended the long series of wars which followed the Reformation. It practically settled the religious question, for it allowed Calvinists in Germany to enjoy the same privileges as Lutherans and also withdrew the Edict of Restitution. Nothing was said in the treaties about liberty of conscience, but from this time the idea that religious differences should be settled by force gradually passed away from the minds of men.
The political clauses of the peace were numerous. France received nearly all of Alsace along the Rhine. Sweden gained possessions in North Germany. Brandenburg—the future kingdom of Prussia—secured additional territory on the Baltic Sea. The independence of Switzerland [38] and of the United Netherlands [39] was also recognized.
The Peace of Westphalia left Germany more divided than ever. Each one of the larger states was free to coin money, raise armies, make war, and negotiate treaties without consulting the emperor. In fact, the Holy Roman Empire had become a mere phantom. The Hapsburgs from now on devoted themselves to their Austrian dominions, which included more Magyars and Slavs than Germans. The failure of the Hapsburgs in the Thirty Years' War long postponed the unification of Germany.
During the Thirty Years' War Germany had seen most of the fighting. She suffered from it to the point of exhaustion. The population dwindled from about sixteen million to one-half, or, as some believe, to one-third that number. The loss of life was partly due to the fearful epidemics, such as typhus fever and the bubonic plague, which spread over the land in the wake of the invading armies. Hundreds of villages were destroyed or were abandoned by their inhabitants. Much of the soil went out of cultivation, while trade and manufacturing nearly disappeared. Added to all this was the decline of education, literature, and art, and the brutalizing of the people in mind and morals. It took Germany at least one hundred years to recover from the injury inflicted by the Thirty Years' War; complete recovery, indeed, came only in the nineteenth century.
The savagery displayed by all participants in the Thirty Years' War could not but impress thinking men with the necessity of formulating rules to protect noncombatants, to care for prisoners, and to do away with pillage and massacre. The worst horrors of the war had not taken place, before a Dutch jurist, named Hugo Grotius, published at Paris in 1625 A.D. a workOn the Laws of War and Peace. It may be said to have founded international law. The success of the book was remarkable. Gustavus Adolphus carried a copy about with him during his campaigns, and its leading doctrines were recognized and acted upon in the Peace of Westphalia.
The great principle on which Grotius based his recommendations was the independence of sovereign states. He gave up the medieval conception of a temporal and spiritual head of Christendom. The nations now recognized no common superior, whether emperor or pope, but all were equal in the sight of international law. The book of Grotius thus marked the profound change which had come over Europe since the Middle Ages.
1. On an outline map indicate the European countries ruled by Charles V.
2. On an outline map indicate the principal territorial changes made by the Peace of Westphalia.
3. Identify the following dates: 1648 A.D.; 1519 A.D.; 1517 A.D.; 1588 A.D.; 1598 A.D.; and 1555 A.D.
4. Locate the following places: Avignon; Constance; Augsburg; Zurich; Worms; Magdeburg; and Utrecht.
5. For what were the following persons noted: Cardinal Wolsey; Admiral de Coligny; Duke of Alva; Richelieu; St. Ignatius Loyola; Boniface VIII; Frederick the Wise; Gustavus Adolphus; and Mary Queen of Scots?
6. Compare the scene at Anagni with the scene at Canossa.
7. On the map, page 646, trace the geographical extent of the "Great Schism."
8. Name three important reasons for the lessened influence of the Roman Church at the opening of the sixteenth century.
9. Explain the difference between heresy and schism.
10. Why has Wycliffe been called the "morning star of the Reformation"?
11. Compare Luther's work in fixing the form of the German language with Dante's service to Italian through theDivine Comedy.
12. What is the origin of the name "Protestant"?
13. Why was Mary naturally a Catholic and Elizabeth naturally a Protestant?
14. On the map, page 663, trace the geographical extent of the Reformation in the sixteenth century.
15. Why did the reformers in each country take special pains to translate the Bible into the vernacular?
16. What is the chief difference in mode of government between Presbyterian and Congregational churches?