How the Reformation happened

How the Reformation Happened

History books deal with this as though it were a simple matter of religious debate. In reality men are human and weak, and do not see the future. The desire for money and power soon got hopelessly mixed up with questions of the Faith. Issues were not always at all clear to the main actors in the dramas of history.

[1] 1350 - 1500 The Waning of the Middle Ages

United Christendom was growing unstable during the three generations between the Black Death & the early 16th Century. The Catholic Church was in ever more urgent need of reform in certain fields, but practically nothing was done for generations. The Avignon Schism, during which there was a rival Papacy at Avignon, gravely weakened the authority of the Church and paralysed the attempts at true reform.

[2] 1517 Luther

Luther's 95 theses led to a sudden flood of revolt made possible by (1) The constitution of Germany (the Holy Roman Empire). The Central Monarchy was weak. (2) The invasion of the Turks. This massive assault on Eastern and Central Europe tied down the already inefficient machinery of the Holy Roman Empire, when a vigorous assault on the North German territories was most needed.

[3] 1536 - 1540 Henry VIII

"...that strange fatality, the political accident whereby England, hitherto the least affected of all Christian Provinces, was, under no popular pressure and without the will or knowledge of the policy's own Author [Henry VIII], turned face about to join the new alien movement." Henry VIII did not intend to start a new Church. It was the ambition of Ann Boleyn who adamantly refused to become Henry's consort without the Crown of England, that catalysed the subsequent chain of events. The Dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 - 1540, an act not connected in its author's mind with doctrine, proves the indirect cause of all that came after.

[4] 1545 The Counter-Reformation

In 1545 The Council of Trent opens. It is the beginning of the organised movement called the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The Church was very thoroghly reformed, and many new saints arose, but all too late to save the unity of Christendom.

Luther gave the German princes the permission to loot the wealth of the Church, and Calvin gave an organised philosophy to the new movement.

[5] 1547 - 1559 Calvin

"Then follows the mighty effect of Calvin, whose book, character and organisation provided form and substance for Protestantism, and gave it personal being: for Calvin's mind was a portent and became the power directing the storm. "Under his effect the opposing forces prepare - 1547 to 1549 - for conflict throughout the West.

[6] 1559 - 1572 The First Phase of Active Conflict

"A universal battle of which France is the main field rages undecided from 1559 - 1572, covering all the West - Netherlands, England, Scotland - until, at the end of this, its first phase of active conflict, the final positions begin to appear: England and Scotland, the Northern Netherlands maintained in separation; France permanenty divided, but the Dynasty and the bulk of the nation rallying to the traditions of Europe."

[7] 1572 - 1600 The Second Phase of Active Conflict ending with the permanent division of Europe

"The second phase of the great conflict - 1570 to the end of the century - is but a confirmation of the new religious frontiers. The Battle has ended in a draw, which leaves Europe permanently divided upon the lines it has since preserved."

[8] 1618 - 1648 The Thirty Years' War

The unsuccessful attempt by the Emperor to re-unite the German states. "There is a belated attempt, indeed, in the next century, 1618 - 1648, made by the Emperor, to recover the many states and cities of Germany for Unity and to establish his own authority and the Ancient Religion over all. It ends, through the genius of Cardinal Richlieu - the conductor of French policy - in a failure. [Cardinal Richlieu supported the Protestant armies of Sweden against the Catholic armies of the Holy Roman Empire, with the intention of strengthening the position of France. A weaker Holy Roman Empire implied a stronger French Kingdom.] Germany remains divided, but not before the struggle (the Thirty Years' War) has ruined German wealth and population for a century."

[9] 1648 The Peace of Westphalia

"After that date (the peace of Westphalia in 1648) the main struggle is at an end throughout Europe, and the effects of the Reformation are established."

A capital effect of the Peace of Westphalia was to accustom the European mind to the previously-unheard-of notion that peace can be maintained at the same time as permanent religious and philosophical division.

Taken in part from the writings of Hilaire Belloc