Ap European History Chapter Essay Example for Free

Ap European History Chapter Essay The chief minister to King Henry VIII, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Sir Thomas More, Wolsey’s successor, guided the opposition to Protestantism. The king earned the title â€Å"Defender of the Faith† by protecting the 7 sacraments against Luther’s attacks. Thomas More wrote Response to Luther in 1523. The King’s Affair The King’s marriage kick started the English Reformation. Catherine Aragon would not produce a male heir for King Henry VIII, only Mary, and Henry wanted a divorce. Catherine had first been the wife of Henry’s brother, Arthur, but he died, so Henry inherited Catherine. They were married in 1509 with a special dispensation from Pope Julius II himself. By the time of his divorce conflict, Henry was in love with Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting. He wanted to wed Anne instead of Catherine. However, he could not get a divorce because Pope Clement VII was a prisoner of Charles V. Cardinal Wolsey, who was in charge of securing and annulment, was dismissed in shame when he failed to do so. Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, both of whom harbored Lutheran sympathies then became Henry’s most trusted advisors. They wanted to create an English church of which the King would be the head. This allowed Henry to annul his own marriage. The â€Å"Reformation Parliament† In 1529, Parliament convened for a seven-year session. It was called the â€Å"Reformation Parliament†. During this period, it passed legislation that placed reins on the clergy. In 1531, the Convocation recognized that the King was the head of the Church. The Parliament published grievances against the Church, ranging from indifference to the laity to too many religious holidays. Parliament also passed Submission of the Clergy which brought canon law under royal control, and the clergy into royal jurisdiction. In 1533, Henry wed Boleyn and Parliament made the king the highest court of appeal for citizens. Also in 1533, Cranmer led the Convocation to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine. In 1534, Parliament ended all payments by the laity and clergy to Rome and gave Henry power over ecclesiastical appointments. The Act of Succession made Anne Boleyn’s children legitimate. The Act of Supremacy made Henry the only head in earth of the Church of England. When Thomas More and John Fischer refused to recognize the Act of Succession and the Act of Supremacy, Henry had them executed to prove a point. In 1536 and 1538, Parliament dissolved England’s monasteries and nunneries. Wives of Henry VIII In 1536, Anne Boleyn was executed for treason and adultery, and her daughter Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Jane Seymour died in 1537, after giving birth to Edward. On the advice of Cromwell, he wed Anne of Cleves. The marriage was annulled by Parliament and Cromwell was executed. Catherine Howard, the fifth wife, was killed for adultery in 1542. Catherine Parr lived. The King’s Religious Conservatism Henry remained decidedly conservative in his religious beliefs. With the Ten Articles of 1536, he made mild confessions to Protestant tenets and maintained Catholic Doctrine. He forbade the clergy to marry or have concubines. Henry wrote the Six Articles of 1539 to strike at Protestant views. They reaffirmed transubstantiation, denied the Eucharistic cup to the laity, declared celibate vows inviolable, provided for private masses, and ordered the continuation of oral confession. Although William Tyndale’s translation was mandated in Parishes, England had to wait till Henry’s death until it could declare itself a Protestant country. The Protestant Reformation under Edward VI Edward was ten when his father died. During this reign, England fully enacted the Protestant Reformation. Edward VI and Somerset responded directly to John Calvin. During Somerset’s regency, Henry’s Six Articles and laws against heresy were fully repealed. Clerical marriage and communion with cup were sanctioned. In 1547, places where endowed masses had traditionally been said for the dead were dissolved. Images and altars were removed from churches in 1550. After Charles V’s victory over the German princes in 1547, German Protestant leaders fled to England for refuge. These people helped to guide the Reformation in England. The Second Act of Uniformity imposed a revised Book of Common Prayer on all churches. Thomas Cranmer’s 42 article confession of faith set forth moderate Protestant doctrine. It taught justification by faith and the supremacy of the Holy Scripture, denied transubstantiation, and recognized only two of the seven sacraments. All of the changes were short-lived however. In 1553, Mary I took Edward’s throne after his death and proceeded to revert back to Catholic doctrine and practice with a single-mindedness rivaling only that of her father’s. It was not until Anne Boleyn’s daughter’s reign that lasting religious settlement was worked out in England. Catholic Reform and the Counter-Reformation The Protestant Reformation was not a surprise. There were internal criticisms and ideas of reform within the Church already even before the Counter-Reformation in reaction to Protestant success. Sources of Catholic Reform Popes preferred â€Å"Men are to be changed by, not to change, religion. † – Superior General of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, instead of changing laws and institutions of the Church. Although the Church denounced it, there were still orders that pushed for reform: Theatines (1524) – Groomed the devout and reform minded leaders at the higher levels of the Church hierarchy. One of the cofounders of this order was Bishop Gian Pietro Carafa, who became Pope Paul IV. Capuchins (Recognized in 1528) – Sought to return to the ascetic and charitable ideals of Saint Francis and became popular among ordinary folks, who were their audience. Somaschi (mid-1520s) and Barnabites (1530) – Directed their efforts at repairing the moral, spiritual, and physical damage done to people in war-torn areas of Italy. For Women: Ursulines (1535) – Established convents in Italy and France for the religious education of girls from all social classes and became very influential. Oratorians (Recognized in 1575) – An elite group of secular clerics who devoted themselves to the promotion of religious literature and church music – One member was Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina (1526 – 1594). In addition to these lay and clerical movements, Spanish mystics Saint Teresa of Avila (1515 – 1582) and Saint John of the Cross (1542 – 1591) popularized the mystical piety of medieval monasticism. Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits The most successful reform group of the Counter-Reformation was the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits (Recognized by the church in 1540, began in 1530s). It grew so much that people went on missions to convert other who lived in Asia, the Americas and even Africa. The founder of Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola, was a hero. His legs were injured during a battle with the French. He swore to become a religious person if he were to survive his injuries. While injured, he had a revelation, and after his recuperation, he began to preach about his revelations. He wrote Spiritual Exercises. He declared that people could shape their own behaviors through self-discipline and practice. In Jesuits eyes, Protestant dissenters were considered as disobedient of the Church authority, and by religious innovation. However, Ignatius of Loyola taught that people should submit to the authority of the Church and spiritual direction. The Council of Trent (1545 – 1563) The success of the Reformation and the insistence of Charles V caused Pope Paul to call for a general council of the church to reassert church doctrine. Caspar Contarini headed the council: he was a leading liberal theologian. However, even Contarini seemed blunt in his report by saying that the simony and the fiscal practices of the Roman Curia were the loss of Church esteem. The report was so critical that Paul IV could not suppress its distribution. Protestants printed and reprinted it to assert control over even the Papacy. The Council of Trent itself met in the following time periods: 1545 – 1547, 1551 – 1552, and 1562 – 1563, a period that spanned the careers of three popes. The laity was not permitted to share in the council’s decisions. The Council’s most important decisions were concerning the internal church discipline. It curtailed the sales of Church offices and other Church goods. Those who resided in Rome instead of the dioceses were forced to move their appointed seats of power. Trent oversaw that bishops could effectively enforce religious discipline and that bishops were subjected to rules that required them to be visible in regular preaching and conduct regular visitations. Parish priests were also to neatly dress, be better educated, strictly celibate, and active among parishioners. A seminary was also constructed in each diocese. The Council of Trent reaffirmed the following: Traditional Scholastic Education of the Clergy The role of good works in salvation The authority of tradition The seven sacraments Transubstantiation The withholding of the Eucharistic cup from the laity Clerical celibacy The reality of purgatory The veneration of saints, relics and sacred images The granting of letters of indulgences The Church solved medieval Scholastic quarrels in favor of the ideologies of Thomas Aquinas, who asserted his authority in the Church. Thereafter, the church offered its strongest resistance to groups like the Jansenists, who strongly endorsed the medieval Augustinian tradition, a source of alternative Catholic, as well as many Protestant, doctrines. Rulers were initially afraid that their lands were beginning to be taken over by papal authority, until the pope reassured them that the orders were by his decree only. The Social Significance of the Reformation in Western Europe Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Calvinists often worked within the framework of reigning political power. This is because the founders themselves believed that they were not on Earth to change the political power, but only to reform religion. They remained highly sensitive to what was politically and socially possible in their age. Some scholars and historians believe that they encouraged acceptance of the sociopolitical status quo of their time. The Revolution in Religious Practices and Institutions The Reformation may have been politically conservative, but by the end of the 16th century, it had brought about radical changes in traditional religious practices and institutions in those lands where it succeeded. Religion in Fifteenth-Century Life Six to eight percent of the population in cities that later turned Protestant was the clergy and the religious, and they exercised political as well as spiritual power. They legislated, taxed, tried cases in special church courts, and they enforced their laws with threats of excommunication. The Church calendar regulated daily life. About one third of the year was given over to some kind of religious observance or celebration. There were frequent period of fasting. Monasteries, especially nunneries, were extremely prominent and influential institutions. The children of society’s most wealthy and powerful citizens resided there. On the streets, friars begged for alms from passerby. In Church, the mass and liturgy were read in Latin. Images of saints were regularly displayed, and on certain holidays their relics were paraded about and venerated. Local religious shrines enjoyed booming business. Pilgrims gathered there for either cures for illnesses, diversion, or even entertainment. Several times during the year, special preachers would come to sell indulgences. Many clergy walked the streets with concubines, even though there were banned from marriage. They only had to pay a small penitent to the Church for toleration. People everywhere could be heard complaining about the clergy’s exemption from taxation and from the civil criminal code. They also grumbled about having to support church offices whose occupants actually lived and worked elsewhere. Townspeople thought that education should be more secular. Religion in Sixteenth-Century Life Although few changes to social and political institutions were clear, the Reformation had firmly taken root in these cities. Overall numbers of the clergy decreased by about two thirds and the number of religious holidays fell by around one third. Places of religious seclusion were almost gone; the remaining ones were transformed into places for the sick and poor or places for education. Churches, which also had been reduced in number by about one third, conducted worship in the vernacular. The laity observed no obligatory fasts. Indulgence preachers no longer appeared. Local shrines were closed down. People venerating saints, relics and images were subject to fines and punishment. Copies or even excerpts of Luther’s translation of the New Testament were common in every household, and even the clergy began to meditate on them. The clergy were allowed to marry, and most did. They paid taxes and were punished in civil courts. Domestic moral life was regulated by committees of about equal numbers of laity and clergy: secular magistrates had the last word in these. Whereas ? of Europe could be considered Protestant in the 16th Century, only about one-fifth was Protestant in the mid-17th Century. The Reformation and Education A great cultural achievement was the Reformation’s implementation of many of the educational reforms of humanism in the Protestant schools and universities. Protestant reformers shared with humanists a common opposition to scholasticism and a belief in unity of wisdom, eloquence, and action. The humanist program of studies was an appropriate tool for the elaboration of Protestant doctrine, which remained ascendant in the Counter-Reformation. The Catholic counter-reformers acknowledged the close connections between the Reformation and the humanism. Ignatius of Loyola observed that new learning was embraced by the Protestants. In his Spiritual Exercises, he said that when the Bible was read directly, it be read under the authority of: Thomas Aquinas, Peter Lombard, and Bonaventure. These people had the clearest understanding, and should guide the study of the Scriptures. In August 1518, Philip Melanchthon (1497 – 1560), arrived at the University of Wittenburg, first implemented the curricular reforms on the humanist model. In his inaugural address, On Improving the Studies of the Young, he presented himself as a defender of the classical studies against â€Å"barbarians who practice barbarous arts†. Melanchthon urged the study of history, poetry and other humanist disciplines. Together, Luther and Melanchthon restructured the University of Wittenburg’s curriculum. Commentaries on Lombard’s Sentences were dropped, as was canon law. Straightforward historical study replaced the old Scholastic lectures on Aristotle. Students read from primary sources, not trusted commentators. New chairs of Greek and Hebrew were created. Luther and Melanchthon also pressed for universal compulsory education so that both boys and girls could get educated in the vernacular. In Geneva, John Calvin and Theodore Beza created the Genevan Academy, which later became the University of Geneva. It was created primarily for Calvinist Ministers, and pursued ideals similar to those set forth by Luther and Melanchthon. Because of the spread of Protestantism from this Academy, a working knowledge of Greek and Hebrew became commonplace in educated circles in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Some people believed that Protestantism was taking over humanism. Erasmus thought that the Reformation was a threat to the liberal arts and good learning. Sebastian Franck pointed out that there were parallels between Luther and Zwingli’s debates and the debate over the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. In spite of these clashes, Humanist culture was indebted to the Reformation. Protestant endorsement of the humanist program remained significant to Humanism even after the Reformation. Protestant schools consolidated and preserved humanist culture for the modern world. In these Protestant schools, the studia humanitatis took hold. The Reformation and the Changing Role of Women Protestant reformers took a positive stand on clerical marriage and opposed monasticism and celibacy. They opposed the popular anti-woman and anti-marriage literature of the Medieval Period. They praised woman in her own right, but especially in her role as a housewife and mother. Although marriage laws gave women greater security, they were still subjects to their husbands. Protestant arguments for marriage included relief of sexual frustration and as a remedy for fornication. Many reformers acknowledged the power of women and could not imagine a world without them. Luther himself wrote that â€Å"Men cannot do without women. † John Calvin stated at the death of his wife that â€Å"I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life. † Such tributes were used to overcome the Catholic Church’s belief that marriage may distract the clergy. Protestants also stressed as no religious movement before them had, the sacredness of marriage and the family life. This attitude created a more respectful relationship between husband and wife and family. The Protestants also believed that women had equal rights to divorce and remarry in good conscience. The reformers were more willing to permit divorce and remarriage on grounds of adultery and abandonment than were the secular magistrates. These magistrates thought that liberal divorce laws would lead to social reform. Women in nunneries wrote that their overseeing by men was just as abusive as their married life. Women in higher classes found a religious component to their greater freedom in life. They believed that the cloister provided an interesting and independent way of life that their secular lives could not provide. Protestants encouraged the education of girls in the vernacular because they wanted women to become pious housewives. Through their education, women found that they were equal to men in the eyes of God. Education also gave women a role as independent authors of the Reformation. These advances were important in the steps toward the emancipation of women completely. Family Life in Early Modern Europe Changes in the timing and the duration of marriage, in family size, and in infant and child care suggest that family life was under a variety of social and economic pressures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Reformation was a factor in these changes, but not the only or even the major one. Families have certain force and logic of their own, regardless of where they are and when they are. Differences in people lay in the ways different cultures and religions infuse family life with values and influence the behavior of family members. Later Marriages Between 1500 and 1800, men and women in Western Europe and England married at later ages. Men tended to in their mid to late-twenties and women in their mid-twenties. The Church sanctioned previously that the age for legal marriage was 14 for men and 12 for women. This might have occurred among the royalty and nobility. After the Reformation, the church required both parental agreement and public vows before a marriage could be recognized as legal. Late marriage in the West reflected the difficulty of being independent for the bachelor period. The difficulty arose because of the population growth during the 15th and 16th centuries (population was recovered from the Black Death). Larger families meant more heirs and a greater division of resources. In German and Scandinavian countries, inheritance would be divided among all male children. People were taking longer to prepare themselves for marriage than before. One in five women never married, and 15% were unmarried widows. A later marriage meant one of shorter duration. Women who bore children for the first time at later ages had a higher mortality than those who bore children at earlier ages. Because of this delayed marriage system, there was increased premarital fornication, and in turn, many illegitimate children were produced. Arranged Marriages Many marriages were arranged in the sense that parents would meet the parents of the spouse before conducting the ceremony. By the fifteenth century, it was not uncommon for bride and groom to have previously known each other, or even have had a previous relationship. Emotional feeling for one another was respected by the parents. Parents did not force marriages, and children could say â€Å"No†. A forced marriage was invalid and unwanted marriages would not last. Family Size The average husband and wife had eight children, and ? of them died by their teens, one third by the age of five. Families lived with their in-laws, servants, laborers and boarders. This was a nuclear family. Birth Control Ever since the beginning of mankind, there have been attempts to control child birth. The church’s banning of male withdrawal before ejaculation is a sign that it had been attempted before. Thomas Aquinas believed that the natural end of coitus was the creation of a child. Wet Nursing The church allied itself with physicians on the matter of condemning women who hired wet nurses. The practice however, was popular among high-class women. Children who were wet nursed usually had a higher mortality rate. To husband’s, a nursing wife was a reluctant lover. Many women prolonged nursing in order to delay a pregnancy. However, noblemen did not like this because they needed a male heir. This jeopardized the patrimony, and they supported wet nursing. Loving Families? Between the ages of eight and thirteen, children were sent out to apprenticeships, schools, or into employment. Widowers and widows married again within a few months of their spouses’ deaths, and marriage with great difference between age limited affection. Literary Imagination in Transition Alongside the political and cultural changes brought about by the new religious systems of the Reformation, medieval outlooks and values continued into the 17th century. However, the literary figures of the post-Reformation period had elements of both old and new styles. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: Rejection of Idealism Spanish literature of the 16th and 17th centuries reflects the peculiar religious and political history of Spain in this period. Traditional Catholicism was a major part of Spanish life. Since the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the church received the support of reigning political power. The power of the church and the Inquisition did not allow for Protestantism to gain room in Spain. The piety of rulers also influenced Spanish rulers. The third influence was the preoccupation with medieval chivalric virtues, in particular, questions of honor and loyalty. Spanish literature remained more Catholic and medieval than that of England and France, where two Protestant movements occurred. Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderon, two of the period’s greatest writers, became priests. Cervantes only had a little bit of formal education. He educated himself by wide reading in popular literature and immersion in the â€Å"School of Life. † In prison, in 1603, he began to write Don Quixote. The first part of Don Quixote appeared in 1605. This work was written to satirize the chivalric romances then popular in Spain. Cervantes presents Don Quixote as an unstable middle class man. By reading too many chivalric romances, he believed he was an aspiring knight who had to prove himself through brave deeds. Don Quixote’s foil – Sancho Panza, a clever, worldly peasant who serves as Quixote’s squire – watches with bemused skepticism as his lord battles with a windmill, which he mistakes for a dragon. At the end, Quixote comes to his senses after a well-meaning friend defeats him â€Å"in battle† as a â€Å"knight†. Quixote returns to his village as a defeated man to die a brokenhearted old man’s death. Throughout the novel, Cervantes juxtaposes the realism of Panza with the religious idealism of Quixote. The reader however, perceives that Cervantes loved both characters equally. William Shakespeare: Dramatist of the Age