History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution: Volume 1 — The Religious Revolution, Part 5

During the period that intervened between the /Ratisbon Interim/ and the death of Luther (1541-6) Charles V. , hard pressed by the war with France and the unsuccessful expeditions against the Barbary pirates, was obliged to yield to the increasing demands of the Protestant princes; nor could Paul III.

, however much he desired it, realise his intention of convoking a General Council.

But at last the Peace of Crepy (1544) which put an end to the war with France, and the convocation of a General Council to meet at Trent in March 1545, strengthened the hands of the Emperor, and enabled him to deal effectively with the religious revolution.

The Protestant princes announced their determination to take no part in a Council convoked and presided over by the Pope.

Charles left no stone unturned to induce them to adopt a more conciliatory attitude, but all his efforts having proved unavailing, he let it be known publicly that he would not allow himself to be intimidated by threats of violence, and that if need be he would insist on obedience at the point of the sword.

John Frederick of Saxony and Philip of Hesse, alarmed by the threatening aspect of affairs, determined to anticipate the Emperor, and took the field at the head of an army of forty thousand men (1546).

Charles V. , relying upon the aid of the Pope and the co-operation of the Catholic princes, issued a proclamation calling upon all loyal subjects to treat them as rebels and outlaws.

Maurice of Saxony deserted his co-religionists on promise of succeeding to the Electorship, joined the standard of Charles V. , and in conjunction with Ferdinand directed his forces against Saxony.

The Elector was defeated and captured at Muhlberg (April 1547).

He was condemned to death as a traitor, but he was reprieved and detained as a prisoner in the suite of the Emperor, while his nephew, Maurice of Saxony, succeeded to his dominions.

Philip of Hesse, too, was obliged to surrender, and Charles V. found himself everywhere victorious.

He insisted on the restoration of the Bishop of Naumburg and of Henry of Brunswick to his kingdom as well as on the resignation of Hermann Prince von Wied, Archbishop of Cologne.

He was unwilling, however, to proceed to extremes with the Protestant princes, well knowing that he could not rely on some of his own supporters.

Besides, he had become involved in serious difficulties with Pope Paul III.

, who complained, and not without reason, of the demands made upon him by the Emperor, and of the concessions that the Emperor was willing to make to the Lutherans.

Charles V. summoned a Diet to meet at Augsburg (1547), where he hoped that a permanent understanding might be secured.

A document known as the /Augsburg Interim/, prepared by Catholic theologians in conjunction with the Lutheran, John Agricola, was accepted provisionally by both parties.

The doctrines were expressed in a very mild form, though not, however, altogether unacceptable to Catholics.

Protestants were permitted to receive communion under both kinds;

their married clergy were allowed to retain their wives; and it was understood tacitly that they might keep possession of the ecclesiastical property they had seized.

The /Augsburg Interim/, as might have been anticipated, was displeasing to both parties.

Maurice of Saxony, unwilling to give it unconditional approval, consulted Melanchthon and others of his school as to how far he might accept its terms.

In their reply they distinguished between matters that were essential and those that were only of secondary importance.

The latter might be accepted unreservedly in obedience to the orders of the Emperor.

In regard to doctrines, they were willing to compromise on the question of justification and good-works, to accept the sacraments, including confirmation and Extreme Unction, the Mass with the addition of some German hymns, and in a certain sense the jurisdiction of the bishops.

Such concessions were a distinct departure from Luther's teaching and would have been impossible had he been alive.

The relations between the Pope and the Emperor took a more friendly turn when the General Council was transferred from Bologna to Trent (1551).

The Protestant princes, invited to send representatives, declined at first, but in a short time several of them agreed to accept the invitation.

Safe conducts were issued for their representatives by the Council in 1551 and again in 1552. Even the Wittenberg theologians were not unfavourably disposed, and Melanchthon was actually on his way to Trent.

But suddenly Maurice of Saxony, who had assembled a large army under pretext of reducing Magdeburg, and had strengthened himself by an alliance with several princes as well as by a secret treaty with Henry II.

of France, deserted the Emperor and placed himself at the head of the Protestant forces.

When all his plans were completed he advanced suddenly through Thuringia, took Augsburg, and was within an inch of capturing the Emperor who then lay ill at Innsbruck (1552).

At the same time the French forces occupied Lorraine.

Charles, finding himself unable to carry on the struggle, opened negotiations for peace, and in 1552 the Treaty of Passau was concluded.

Philip of Hesse was to be set at liberty; a Diet was to be called within six months to settle the religious differences; in the meantime neither the Emperor nor the princes should interfere with freedom of conscience; and all disputes that might arise were to be referred to a commission consisting of an equal number of Protestant and Catholic members.

Owing to the war with France it was not until the year 1555 that the proposed Diet met at Augsburg.

The Protestant party, encouraged by their victories, were in no humour for compromise, and as it was evident that there was no longer any hope of healing the religious division in the Empire, it was agreed that peace could be secured only by mutual toleration.

In September 1555 the Peace of Augsburg was concluded.

According to the terms of this convention full freedom of conscience was conceded in the Empire to Catholics and to all Protestants who accepted the Augsburg Confession.

The latter were permitted to retain the ecclesiastical goods which they had already acquired before the Treaty of Passau (1552).

For the future each prince was to be free to determine the religion of his subjects, but in case a subject was not content with the religion imposed on him by his sovereign he could claim the right to migrate into a more friendly territory.

A great difficulty arose in regard to the disposal of the ecclesiastical property in case a Catholic bishop or abbot should apostatise.

Notwithstanding the protests of the Protestant party, it was decreed that if such an event should occur the seceder could claim his own personal property, but not the property attached to his office.

This clause, known as the /Ecclesiasticum Reservatum/, gave rise to many disputes, and was one of the principal causes of the Thirty Years' War.

By the /Peace of Augsburg/ Protestantism was recognised as a distinct and separate form of Christianity, and the first blow was struck at the fundamental principles on which the Holy Roman Empire had been built.

Charles V. was blamed at the time, and has been blamed since for having given his consent to such a treaty, but if all the circumstances of the time be duly considered it is difficult to see how he could have acted otherwise than he did.

It is not the Emperor who should be held accountable for the unfavourable character of the Augsburg Peace, but "the most Catholic King of France" who allied himself with the forces of German Protestantism, and the Catholic princes who were more anxious to secure their own position than to fight for their sovereign or their religion.

Charles V. , broken down in health and wearied by his misfortunes and his failure to put down the religious revolt, determined to hand over to a younger man the administration of the territories over which he ruled, and to devote the remainder of his life to preparation for the world to come.

In a parting address delivered to the States of the Netherlands he warned them "to be loyal to the Catholic faith which has always been and everywhere the faith of Christendom, for should it disappear the foundations of goodness should crumble away and every sort of mischief now menacing the world would reign supreme."

After his resignation he retired to a monastery in Estremadura, where he died in 1558. Spain and the Netherlands passed to his legitimate son, Philip II.

, while after some delay his brother, Ferdinand, was recognised as his successor in the Empire.

Charles V. was a man of sound judgment and liberal views, of great energy and prudence, as skilful in war as he was in the arts of diplomacy, and immensely superior in nearly every respect to his contemporaries, Francis I. of France and Henry VIII.

of England.

Yet in spite of all his admitted qualifications, and notwithstanding the fact that he was the ruler of three-fourths of Western Europe, he lived to witness the overthrow of his dearest projects and the complete failure of his general policy.

But his want of success was not due to personal imprudence or inactivity.

It is to be attributed to the circumstances of the times, the rebellion in Spain, the open revolt of some and the distrust of others in Germany, the rapid advance of the Turks towards the west, and, above all, the struggle with France.

Despite his many quarrels with the Holy See, and in face of the many temptations held out to him to arrive at the worldwide dictatorship to which he was suspected of aspiring, by putting himself at the head of the new religious movement, he never wavered for a moment in his allegiance to the Catholic Church.

---------- [1] Grisar, /Luther/ (Eng.

Trans.

), i. , p. 4. [2] /Id.

/ p. 8. [3] Grisar, /Luther/ (Eng.

Trans.

), i. , p. 14. [4] Id.

chap.

iv.

[5] Keller, /Johann von Staupitz und die Anfange der Reformation/, 1888. [6] Grisar, op.

cit.

(Eng.

Trans.

), i. , 34, 323. [7] Id.

i.

, 34, Bd.

iii.

, 957-8. [8] Paulus, /Johann Tetzel, der Ablassprediger/, 1899. /Die Deutschen Dominikaner im Kampfe gegen Luther/, 1903. [9] Grisar, op.

cit.

(Eng.

Trans.

), i. , pp. 341-55. [10] Kidd, /Documents of the Continental Reformation/, pp. 20-6. [11] Specially, Nos.

43, 45, 59, 86. [12] /Dialogus .

.

.

in presumptuosas M. Lutheri conclusiones de potestate Papae.

/ [13] Greving, /Johann Eck/, etc. , 1906. [14] "/Beatissime Pater, prostratum me pedibus tuae beatitudinis offero cum omnibus quae sum et habeo.

Vivifica, occide, voca, revoca, approba, reproba, ut placuerit.

Vocem tuam vocem Christi in te praesidentis et loquentis agnoscam.

Si mortem merui, mori non recusabo.

/" [15] Pastor, op.

cit.

, iv.

, 177-9. [16] Creutzberg, /Karl von Miltitz/, 1907. [17] "/Coram Deo et tota creatura sua testor, me neque voluisse neque hodie velle Ecclesiae Romanae ac Beatitudinis Tuae potestem ullo modo tangere aut quacunque versutia demoliri; quin plenissime confiteor huius ecclesiae potestatem esse super omnia, nec ei praeferendum quidquid sive in coelo sive in terra praeter unum Jesum Christum Dominum omnium/" (3rd March, 1519).

Kidd, op.

cit.

, p. 43. [18] Grisar, op.

cit.

(Eng.

Trans.

), i. , 359. [19] /Cambridge Modern History/, ii.

, chaps.

ii.

, iii.

[20] /Imperatorum nationis Germanicae gravamina ad Sadem Romanam/, 1725. [21] De Weldige-Kremer, /De Joannis Cochlaei Vita et Scriptis/, 1865. He was one of the most energetic opponents of the Reformation party.

[22] Schwane, /Dogmengeschichte der neuren zeit/, 1890, pp. 131-51, 210-240, 251-92. [23] Grisar, op.

cit.

, Bd.

iii.

, 228. [24] /De Libero Arbitrio/, etc. , 1524. [25] Grisar, op.

cit.

, Bd.

i.

, pp. 483-502. [26] Raynaldus, /Ann.

Eccl.

/ (ann.

1522).

[27] Pastor, op.

cit.

, Bd.

iv.

, pp. 212-393. [28] "Of such slender dimensions was the original Protestant Church;

small as it was, it was only held together by the negative character of its protest."

--/Camb.

Mod.

Hist.

/, ii.

, p. 205. [29] Negwer, /Wimpina/, 1909. [30] Hergenrother-Kirsch, op.

cit.

, Bd.

iii.

, p. 80. [31] Pastor, op.

cit.

, Bd.

iv.

, 473-5. [32] Hergenrother-Kirsch, op.

cit.

, iii.

, pp. 102-8. [33] For Luther's own views on the results of his preaching, cf.

Dollinger, /Die Reformation/, Bd.

ii.

, pp. 426-52. [34] Grisar, op.

cit.

, Bd.

ii.

, 382-436. [35] Grisar, op.

cit.

, Bd.

iii.

, 211-30. [36] That there can be no question of suicide is admitted (Paulus /Luthers Lebensende/, 1898).

[37] /Tischreden/ (/Table Talk/), cf.

Grisar, ii.

, 178 sqq.

Smith, /Luther's Table Talk/, 1907. /Am.

Ecc.

Review/ (1906, pp. 1-18).

[38] /Personal Character of Luther/ (/Ir.

Theol.

Quart.

/, viii.

, p. 77-85).

(b) Zwingli in Switzerland: His attitude towards Lutheranism.

See works mentioned above (II.

a).

Dandliker, /Geschichte der Schweiz/, 3 Bde, 1904. Dandliker-Salisbury, /A Short History of Switzerland/, 1899. De Haller, /Histoire de la revolution religieuse ou de la reforme protestante dans la Suisse occidentale/, 1837. Gelpke, /Kirchengeschichte der Schweiz/, 1856- 61. Schuler-Schulthess, /Opera Huldrici Zwinglii/, 8 vols.

, 1828- 42. Jackson, /Huldreich Zwingli/, 1901. The territory now known as Switzerland formed portion of the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1291, however, during the reign of Rudolph of Habsburg, the three states or cantons of Uri, Schweiz, and Unterwalden, formed a confederation to defend their rights and privileges, thus laying the foundation for the existence of Switzerland as an independent nation.

Other cantons joined the alliance, more especially after the victory at Morgarten in 1315, when the Austrian forces despatched against the Swiss were almost annihilated.

Austria made various attempts to win back the Swiss to their allegiance but without success, and in 1394 the independence of the allied cantons was practically recognised.

About the time of the Reformation in Germany Switzerland consisted of thirteen cantons and several smaller "allied" or "friendly" states not admitted to full cantonal rights.

Though bound together by a loose kind of confederation for purposes of defence against aggression, the various states enjoyed a large measure of independence, and each was ruled according to its own peculiar constitution.

The Federal Diet or General Assembly was composed of representatives appointed by the cantons, and its decisions were determined by the votes of the states, the largest and most populous possessing no greater powers than the least influential member of the confederation.

Some of the states were nominally democratic in their form of government, but, as in most countries during this period, the peasants had many grounds for reasonable complaint, particularly in regard to taxation, treasury pensions, and the enlisting and employment of the Swiss mercenary troops, then the best soldiers in Europe.

As in Germany, many causes were at work to prepare the ground for the new religious teaching.

On account of the free character of its institutions refugees of all kinds fled to Switzerland for asylum, and were allowed great liberty in propagating their views.

Again, the Swiss mercenaries, returning from their campaigns and service, during which they were brought into contact with various classes and nations, served much the same purpose as does the modern newspaper.

In both these ways the peasants of Switzerland were kept in touch with the social, political, and religious condition of the rest of Europe, and with the hopes and plans of their own class in other kingdoms.

Humanism had not, indeed, made very striking progress in Switzerland, though the presence of Erasmus at Basle, and the attacks that he directed against the monks and the clergy, could not fail to produce some effect on a people whose minds were already prepared for such methods by their acquaintance with modern developments.

If, however, the Church in Switzerland had been free from abuses not all the wit and eloquence of Erasmus and his followers could have produced a revolt, but unfortunately, the influences that led to the downfall of religion in other countries were also at work in the Swiss cantons.

The cathedral chapters were composed for the greater part of men who had no vocation to the priesthood, and who adopted the clerical profession because they wished to enrich themselves from the revenues of the Church, and were ensured of good positions through the influence of their relatives and patrons.

Many of the clergy were far from being perfect, nor were all the religious institutions mindful of the spirit or even of the letter of their constitutions.

Unfortunately, too, owing to the peculiar political development of their country, the bishops of Switzerland were subject to foreign metropolitans, two of them being under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Mainz, two under Besancon, one under Aquileia, and one subject immediately to Rome.

Partly for this reason, partly, also, owing to the increasing encroachments of the civil power, disputes and conflicts between the ecclesiastical and temporal jurisdictions were not unfrequent.

But it would be a mistake to suppose that there were no good ecclesiastics in Switzerland at this time.

There were many excellent priests, both secular and regular, who recognised the sad condition of affairs, and who supported measures such as those undertaken by the Bishop of Basle in 1503 with all their power.

The great body of teachers known as the Friends of God were at work in Switzerland as in the Netherlands, and were doing splendid service for education, both secular and religious.

The man, who played in Switzerland the part played so successfully by Luther in Germany, was Ulrich Zwingli.

He was the son of rich parents, born at Wildhaus, in the canton of Saint Gall (1484), educated at the Universities of Berne, Basle, and Vienna, and after his ordination to the priesthood, appointed to the parish of Glarus.

He was a young man of remarkable ability both as a student and as a preacher, and was fortunate enough to attract the notice of a papal legate, through whose influence a pension was assigned to him to enable him to prosecute his studies.

He was a good classical scholar with a more than average knowledge of Hebrew, and well versed in the Scriptures and in the writings of the Fathers.

For a time he acted as chaplain to some Swiss regiments fighting in Italy for the Pope against France, and on his return to his native country he was appointed preacher at the famous shrine of Our Lady at Einsiedeln.

[1] Here his oratorical powers stood him in good stead, but his judgment and level-headedness were not on the same high plane as his declamatory powers, nor was his own private life in keeping with the sanctity of the place or with the denunciations that he hurled so recklessly against his clerical brethren.

He began to attack pilgrimages and devotions to the Blessed Virgin, but it was not so much for this as for his unlawful relations with a woman of bad character that he was relieved of his office.

[2] He retired to Zurich where he was appointed preacher in the cathedral.

Here he denounced the lives of the clergy and the abuses in the Church, relying, as he stated, upon what he had seen himself in Italy during his residence there as chaplain to the Swiss mercenaries.

Like Luther, he well knew how to win the attention and sympathy of the mob by his appeals to the national feelings of his countrymen, and like Luther he insisted that the Scriptures were the sole rule of faith.

He denounced in the strongest language the immorality and vices of the clergy, celibacy, vows of chastity, pilgrimages and the veneration of the saints, but for so far he had not broken entirely with the Church.

The preaching of the Indulgences promulgated by Leo X. in Constance was entrusted to the Franciscans.

Their work was a difficult one especially as the Grand Council of Zurich forbade them to persist, as, indeed, did also the able and zealous Hugo von Hohenlandenberg, Bishop of Constance, in whose diocese Zurich was situated.

Zwingli, confident of the support of the city authorities, attacked the doctrine of Indulgences and was backed by the Grand Council, which ordered, at his instigation, that the Word of God should be preached according to the Scriptures, regardless of tradition or the interpretation of the Church.

Later on he directed his attacks against the meritoriousness of good works and the practice of fast and abstinence (1522), and about the same time he addressed a petition to the Bishop of Constance demanding that he should not interfere with the preaching of the pure Word of God nor set any obstacle to the marriage of his priests.

He admitted publicly that his relations with women had been disgraceful, that he had learned from his own personal experience how impossible of fulfilment was the vow of chastity, and that marriage was the only remedy that would enable him to overcome the emotions of carnal lust referred to by St. Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians (I. 7, 9).

The bishop refused to yield to this demand insisting on the strict observance of celibacy, and appealed to the Grand Council to support him with the full weight of their authority (April 1522).

Incensed by this refusal Zwingli shook off the yoke of ecclesiastical authority, rejected the primacy of the Pope, and the infallibility of General Councils, denounced celibacy and vows of chastity as inventions of the devil, and called upon the Swiss people to support him in his fight for religious freedom.

Once before, in 1520, Leo X. had summoned Zwingli to Rome to answer for his teaching, but the summons had been unheeded.

Adrian VI.

made another attempt to win him from his dangerous course by a letter full of kindness and sympathy, but his remonstrance produced no effect (1523).

The Grand Council of Zurich, hopeful of securing a preponderating influence in Switzerland by taking the lead in the new movement, favoured Zwingli.

Instead of responding to the appeal of the Bishop of Constance it announced a great religious disputation to be held in January 1523, to which both Zwingli and his opponents were summoned for the explanation and defence of their views.

Zwingli put forward sixty-seven theses, the principal of which were that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, that the Church is not a visible society but only an assembly of the elect, of which body Christ is the only true head, that consequently the jurisdiction of the Pope and of the bishops is a usurpation devoid of scriptural authority, that the Mass, Confession, Purgatory, and Intercession of the Saints are to be rejected as derogatory to the merits of Christ, and finally, that clerical celibacy and monastic vows, instead of being counsels of perfection, are only cloaks for sin and hypocrisy.

The Bishop of Constance refused to take part in such a disputation.

His vicar-general, Johann Faber of Constance, however, attended the meeting, not indeed to take part in the discussion but merely to protest against it as opposed to the authority of the Church and of the councils.

As his protests were unheeded, he undertook to defend the doctrines attacked, but in the end the Grand Council declared that the victory rested with Zwingli.

Flushed with his triumph Zwingli now proceeded to put his theories into practice.

Supported by a mob he endeavoured to prevent the celebration of Mass, religious processions, the use of pictures and statues, and the solemn ceremonial associated with Extreme Unction and the Viaticum.

He compiled an introduction to the New Testament for the use of the clergy, called upon them to abandon their obligations of celibacy, and set them an example by taking as his wife a woman who had been for years his concubine.

He and his followers, supported by the majority of the Grand Council, went through the city destroying altars, pictures, statues, organs, and confessionals, and erecting in place of the altars plain tables with a plate for bread and a vessel for wine.

The Catholic members of the Grand Council were driven from their position, and Catholic worship forbidden in Zurich (1523-5).

The system of Zwingli was much more rationalistic and, in a certain sense, much more logical than that of Luther.

Imbued with the principles of pantheistic mysticism, he maintained that God is in Himself all being, created as well as uncreated, and all activity.

Hence it was as absurd to speak of individual liberty or individual action as to speak of a multiplicity of gods.

Whether it was a case of doing good or doing evil man was but a machine like a brush in the hands of a painter.

In regard to sin he contended man may be punished for violating the law laid down by God even though the violation is unavoidable, but God, being above all law, is nowise to blame.

Concupiscence or self-love is, according to him, at the root of all misdeeds.

It is in itself the real original sin, and is not blotted out by Baptism.

His teaching on the Scriptures, individual judgment, ecclesiastical authority as represented by the bishops, councils, and Pope, good works, indulgences, purgatory, invocation of the saints, and vows of chastity differed but slightly from what Luther had put forward.

On the question of Justification, and particularly on the doctrine of the Eucharist, the two reformers found themselves in hopeless conflict.

[3] Zwingli's teaching did not at first find much favour in other portions of German Switzerland.

Lucerne declared against it in 1524. The city authorities forbade the introduction of the new teaching, and offered an asylum to those Catholics who had been forced to flee from Zurich.

Other cantons associated themselves with Lucerne, and a deputation was sent to Zurich to request the city authorities to abandon Zwingli and to take part in a general movement for a real and constitutional reform.

But the Grand Council, mindful of the political advantages which would accrue to Zurich from its leadership in the new religious revolt, declined to recede from their position.