and Scotland (1517-59). The Reformation in England (1531-62).
Principal Differences among the Protestant Churches.
ONE of the most distinguished statesmen of the sixteenth
century, Cardinal Pole, wrote to Pope Leo X. that it was
dangerous to render men too learned. In
clergy 6 fn the f act the Renaissance of letters partly caused
sixteenth cen- the religious Reformation. Study of the
ancients opened new horizons to thought.
The invention of printing, the discovery of America, the
progress of manufactures, the immense extension of com-
merce, awoke new ideas in the mind. Man felt his intelli-
gence increase at the same time that he saw his dominions
widen.
Astonished by all these novelties, he began to doubt many
ancient things. The spirit of curiosity and examination
applied itself to all; it had transformed arts, letters, and the
social state; it wished also to transform religious institu-
tions.
There then took place something analogous to that which
our fathers saw. The literature of the eighteenth century
by its habit of ascending in everything to principles pre-
pared the political and social revolutions of 1789; that of the
sixteenth through its veneration for the two antiquities, the
sacred and classic, which had just been, as it were, refound,
led to the religious Reformation, whose true character is a
mixture of the rational spirit derived from the pagans and of
theological ardor borrowed from the Bible, St. Paul, and St.
Augustine.
160
REVOLUTION IN CREEDS. 161
But the first author of this revolution was the clergy itself.
The religious spirit was dying. What was there in common
between the Church of the early days, poor, humble, ardent,
and the Church opulent, sovereign, idle, of this Leo X. who
lived like a gentleman of the Renaissance with huntsmen,
artists, and poets much more than with theologians; or the
Church of Cardinal Bembo, who wrote to Sadoleto: "Do not
read the epistles of St. Paul for fear that such a barbarous
style will corrupt your tastes. Leave those trifles, unworthy
of a serious man." ("Omitte has nugas; non enim decent
gravem virum tales ineptiae.") And the monks, what was
not said of them? The ways of the world are not changed
by satires; Erasmus, Hutten, and all the diatribes could
have accomplished nothing in the thirteenth century. They
had great influence in the sixteenth, because abuses which
did not earlier exist or which were still very feeble had
three centuries later reached a dangerous development in
the discipline and manners of the clergy. Let us listen to
the last of the Church fathers. "Centuries ago," said
Bossuet, "the reformation of Church discipline was desired;
'Who will grant me before I die,' said St. Bernard, 'to see the
Church of God as it was in the early days?' ' If this holy
man experienced any regret in dying, it was that he had not
beheld so happy a change. He groaned all his life at the
evils of the Church. He did not cease to warn the peoples,
the clergy, the bishops, the Popes even, concerning them;
he did not fear to warn concerning them the recluses who
in their solitude were afflicted with him, and who the more
praised divine goodness for having brought them there,
inasmuch as corruption was increasing in the world.
The mother of churches, the Roman Church, which during
nine entire centuries was foremost in observing ecclesiastical
discipline with exemplary exactness, and which with all its
strength maintained it through the world, was not exempt
from the evil. From the time of the Council of Vienne, the
great bishop charged by the Pope with preparation of the
subjects which were to be treated there, put as the funda-
mental task of that holy assembly the necessity of reforming
the Church in its chief and in its members. The great schism
which came a little after put this word reform more than
ever upon the lips, not only of private doctors, of Gerson,
of Pierre d'Aille, of the other leading men of the time, but
also of the councils; each was full of it in the councils of
162 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
Pisa and Basel, where the Reformation was unhappily eluded
and the Church plunged into new divisions. To Eugenius
IV., Cardinal Julian represented the disorders of the clergy,
especially that of Germany. "These disorders," said he to
him," excite the hatred of the people against all ecclesiasti-
cal order; if it is not corrected it is to be feared that the laity,
following the example of the Hussites, will attack the clergy
as they now openly menace us with doing." If the clergy of
Germany was not promptly reformed he predicted that after
the heresy of Bohemia was extinguished there would speedily
arise another still more dangerous. "For they will say,"
continued he, "that the clergy is incorrigible, and is willing
to apply no remedy to its disorders. They will attack us,"
continued this great cardinal, "when they have no longer
any hope of our correction. Men's minds are waiting for
what shall be done; it seems as if shortly something tragic
will be brought forth. The venom which they have against
us is becoming evident; soon they will believe they are mak-
ing a sacrifice agreeable to God by maltreating or despoiling
the ecclesiastics as people odious to God and man, and im-
mersed to the utmost in evil. The little reverence still
remaining for the sacred order will be destroyed. Responsi-
bility for all these disorders will be charged upon the court
of Rome, which will be regarded as the cause of all these
evils because it has neglected to apply the necessary remedy. ' '
He resumed in a higher tone. "I see," said he, "that
the ax is at the root, the tree inclines, and instead of sus-
taining it while it might still be done we precipitate it to the
earth." He saw a speedy desolation impending over the
German clergy. The temporal possessions, of which they
wished to deprive it, seemed to him the point whereat the
evil would commence. "The bodies," said he, "will perish
with the souls. God takes from us the sight of our perils,
just as he is wont to do with those whom he wishes to
punish: the fire is lighted before us and we rush forward."
Thus in the fifteenth century this cardinal, the greatest
man of his time, deplored the evils; he foresaw their fatal
consequences: therefore he seems to have anticipated those
which Luther was about to bring upon all Christianity,
commencing with Germany; and he was not mistaken in
believing that unwillingness to reform and increasing hatred
against the clergy would beget a sect more formidable to
the Church than that of the Hussites.
CHAP. XIII.] REVOLUTION IN CREEDS. 163
Thus Bossuet himself attests that in many parts of Chris-
tendom, especially where the clergy possessed as in Germany
almost a third, and as in England almost a fifth,
Luther : The . . . . , .
Reformation in of the lands, and in the midst of so much
iri er the n scandi^ wealth forgot its discipline, men's minds were
navian states prepared for revolution when Luther appeared.
Born at Eisleben in 1483, this son of a poor
Saxon miner became the doctor the most listened to of the
University of Wittenberg. "He possessed strength with his
genius, vehemence in his discourses, a living and impetuous
eloquence which swept away and took entire possession of the
peoples, an extraordinary boldness when he saw himself sus-
tained and applauded, with an air of authority which made
his disciples tremble before him, so that they did not dare
to contradict him in things either great or small."
The wars of Julius II. had exhausted the pontifical treas-
ury. Then came the extravagances of Leo X. , who expended
100,000 ducats at his coronation and gave 500 for a sonnet.
Thus in order to live he was obliged to pawn the jewels of
St. Peter and to sell offices, which increased by 40,000 ducats
the annual revenue of the government. St. Peter's in Rome,
the splendid temple commenced by Julius II. upon a plan
which was to make it the most grandiose sanctuary of Chris-
tianity, was in danger of remaining unfinished. Leo X.
accorded indulgences to all those who would contribute to
its completion. The Archbishop of Maintz, charged with
announcing these indulgences in Germany, had them sol-
emnly proclaimed in Saxony by the Dominican Tetzel.
There were great abuses committed, both in the exagger-
ated promises made to the faithful who purchased these
means of salvation and in the employment under their very
eyes of a part of their money. The Augustines, till then
charged with the sale of indulgences, were irritated when
they saw this lucrative mission pass into the hands of the
Dominicans. Displeasure revealed to them abuses, and
these abuses were rudely attacked by their most eminent
doctor, Martin Luther, whom his theological studies had
caused to hold entirely different ideas. He was in fact
already planted upon the principle which has remained the
foundation of the Protestant churches, justification by faith
alone, while the doctrine of indulgences supposes also justi-
fication by works. Such was the commencement of the
Reformation.
1 64 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
Luther at first cast the blame only on Tetzel. "He
attacked primarily the abuses which many made of indul-
gences and the excesses which they preached. But he was
too ardent to confine himself within these limits; from
abuses he passed quickly to the thing itself. He advanced
by degrees, and still, while he was always depreciating the
indulgences and reducing them almost to nothing by his
manner of explanation, at bottom he appeared to be in
accord with his adversaries, because when he put his propo-
sitions in writing there was one couched in these terms: "If
any one denies the verity of the papal indulgences let him
be anathema' " (Bossuet).
On All Saints' Day (1517) Luther affixed to the door of
the great church of Wittenberg 95 propositions con-
cerning indulgences. Tetzel replied with no counter prop-
ositions. The battle was engaged. Forced to defend him-
self, Luther directed his attention to formidable questions,
and, carried away by the heat of the combat, soon left aside
Tetzel and the indulgences to arraign the Pope himself and
the Catholic dogmas. "Little by little he became excited
against the Church and plunged into schism" (Bossuet).
At the first news of these disputes, "It is a monkish
quarrel," Leo X. replied to those who foresaw an innovator
in the bold theologian ; he had forgotten Luther and Tetzel
that he might return to hear the "Calandra"of Bibbiena or
the "Mandragola" of Machiavelli. However, since the noise
increased, in 1518 he sent Cardinal Cajetano to Augsburg,
who sought by caresses and menaces to shake the Saxon
monk, but Luther had become confirmed in his doctrines; he
refused the cardinal as a judge, and appealed from the Pope
badly informed to the Pope better informed. This was still
recognizing the pontifical authority. The following year his
protector, the Elector of Saxony, having become vicar of the
empire by the death of the emperor Maximilian, he made an
additional step: he appealed from the Pope to a general
council. In forming this appeal Luther did not yet pass
beyond the ideas of the fathers of Basel and Constance, who
had proclaimed the authority of general councils superior
to that of the sovereign pontiff; but after having rejected
the Pope, he was led to reject the councils; after the coun-
cils, the fathers that is to say, all human authority to place
himself face to face with Scripture, to hereafter listen, as he
said, only to the word of God, wishing between it and him
CHAP. XIII.] REVOLUTION IN CREEDS. 165
no intermediary. But Scripture is not always so clear, so
accessible to all intelligences, that an interpreter is unnec-
essary if one wishes to maintain unity of belief; this inter-
preter the Catholic Church recognized in the Pope. Luther
suppressing him, each one could interpret the Scriptures
according to his fancy; the unity of the Church was de-
stroyed; "The garment without seam was torn;" the sects
multiplied, and some perverted spirits, reading in Scripture
what their evil passions wished to find there, gave birth to
monstrous doctrines which appalled all parties. As early as
the year 1519 Luther had progressed far in his opinions.
Already he attacked the authority of the Popes, the sacra-
ments and monastic vows, and he touched upon the formi-
dable questions of grace and free will. In 1520 he addressed
to the Pope his book upon "Christian Liberty," which per-
mitted Leo X. no longer to temporize. June 15, 1520, a bull
was launched against him which condemned forty-one prop-
ositions extracted from his book and menaced him with ex-
communication if he did not retract in sixty days. But what
could this worn-out weapon do since it served for so many
things, even the smallest, as to strike at those who reprinted
Tacitus or Ariosto in competition with the pontifical editor?
Breaking forever with Rome, at Wittenberg Luther burned
the bull of the Pope while an enthusiastic crowd applauded.
What gave him so much audacity was the fact that the
number of his partisans was increasing every day. The
people were delighted that they were called themselves to
read the Scriptures, translated into German by Luther, and
that the riches of the clergy were denounced as a violation
of the Gospel. The princes, to whom the resources of the
Middle Ages no longer sufficed for the increasing expenses of
the growing luxury, of the administration which was devel-
oping, of the armies which must be paid, heard with pleas-
ure protestations against these great domains of the Church
protestations exceedingly convenient to them. Many, in
fine, were flattered that those great and troublesome ques-
tions were brought from the sanctuary into the public
square; they yielded to the irresistible attraction of reli-
gious liberty which Luther caused to glitter before their eyes,
sure to use it against himself as he had used it against the
Pope.
However, when the interregnum ceased, Charles V., who
needed the Pope against Francis I., and who was determined
1 66 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
to restore religious peace in the empire, convoked a grand
diet at Worms (1521). Luther went thither with a safe con-
duct, and refused solemnly to retract any of his opinions
unless the error was proved to him by the Holy Scriptures.
The diet placed the reformer under the ban of the empire;
but such had been the attitude of the people and that of a
great number of princes that they did not dare to violate the
imperial safe conduct. Happier than had been John Huss,
Luther was able to depart from Worms, and his protector
kept him concealed almost a year in the castle of the Wart-
burg in Thuringia.
From this retreat, where he completed his translation of
the Bible into the common language, Luther with impunity
spread his doctrines through all Germany; printing gave his
pamphlets unlimited publicity. They penetrated hovel and
palace alike.
Moreover, the reformer was cautious in conduct toward
the princes, so powerful since the fall of the Hohenstaufens.
The secularization of the property of the Church was a prize
offered to their covetousness; in 1525 the grand master of
the Teutonic order declared himself hereditary Duke of
Prussia under the suzerainty of Poland. A great part of the
ecclesiastical domains of lower Germany were invaded. As
early as the year 1525 the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave
of Hesse Cassel, the dukes of Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and
Zell, and a large number of imperial cities had embraced
the Reformation and at the same time secularized the posses-
sions of the Church situated in their territory.
The grandees would have gladly taken charge of the direc-
tion and profits of the Reformation; but when the people
saw them lay their hands upon the goods of the clergy they
wished in their fashion to have part in the spoil. Besides,
there was deep resentment against the feudal oppression
which the ecclesiastical no less than the secular lords had
exercised over them for centuries. Extensive riots had
already broken out in 1471 and 1492. In 1500 the associ-
ation of the Shoe had been a menace against the nobles;
insurrections had taken place in 1505 and in 1513. The
principal centers of this demagogic excitement were the
Netherlands and Swabia. When the sermons of Luther
fell upon these irritated minds they inflamed them with
savage ardor. Leaving aside theologic questions, they went
straight to social questions; translating a spirit of charity in
CHAP. XIII.] REVOLUTION IN CREEDS. 167
the Gospel into a spirit of egotism, they demanded absolute
equality, community of goods, and overthrow of all author-
ity, religious or civil. These terrible sectaries, who drew
after them all the peasants from Swabia to Thuringia, gave
themselves the name of Anabaptists, because they were
regenerated, they claimed, by a second baptism.
Their chief was Thomas Munzer. Luther was not satis-
fied with disavowing them; he preached against them a war
of extermination. Dispersed at Frankenhausen, the peas-
ants perished by thousands (1525).
The peasants' war frightened everybody. The Catholic
princes considered themselves authorized by the danger
which social order had an instant undergone to form a con-
federacy at Dessau (1525). The Reformed princes on the
other hand signed the union of Torgau (1526). Germany
found itself separated into two leagues, independent of the
imperial power, and war seemed imminent. But Charles
V., occupied alternately by Francis I. and Soulei'man, tem-
porized so as not to create a new enemy in Germany. It
was proposed to have the question settled by an assembly
of doctors of the Church ; but both sides were afraid to unite
in a council where the Reformers knew beforehand they
would be in a minority, and where the court of Rome feared
to find again the traditions of the councils of Basel and Con-
stance.
In 1529 the Ottomans were ravaging Hungary. To ob-
tain the assistance of all the German princes, Charles V. at
the diet of Spires had liberty of conscience proclaimed, but
at the same time forbade the propagation of the new doctrine
concerning the Lord's Supper (1529). The Reformers pro-
tested against this exception. The name of Protestants has
since been given them. The following year they presented
at the diet of Augsburg an official confession of their
beliefs, which since then has been the symbol and bond of
union among all the partisans of Luther (1530). They drew
their union closer at Smalkalde (1531), and the emperor,
menaced by Soulei'man, granted them the peace or interim
of Nuremberg (1532). Two years after they were strong
enough to reinstate the Duke of Wurtemburg, Ulrich, and
to impose on the Catholics the treaty of Cadan in Bohemia,
which granted the Lutherans free exercise of their faith.
However, the Anabaptists reappeared at Munster in West-
phalia on the borders of Holland, but this time with a more
i68 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
regular and hence a more disquieting organization. John
Matthiesen, a baker of Haarlem, was their supreme prophet.
They expelled from the city the bishop, all the wealthy, and
all those who were unwilling to be rebaptized, and then com-
menced the frightful saturnalia of mad demagogism.
They pillaged the churches and monasteries, burned every
book except the Bible, and had goods in common. From
this biblical demagogism issued an unbridled despotism. A
farrier having spoken ill of the prophets, Matthiesen assem-
bled the commune in the market and shot the unfortunate
man. Then he cried out that the Father ordered him to
repulse the enemy, and halberd in hand, precipitated him-
self alone out of the city; he had no sooner passed the gate
than he was slain.
John Bocold, a tailor's apprentice from Leyden, succeeded
him as supreme prophet, and some time later as king, after
one of the prophets had announced that it had been revealed
to him that John of Leyden was to rule over all the earth
and to occupy the throne of David until the time when God
the Father would come to demand the government for him-
self.
The new king established the plurality of wives and sur-
rounded himself with a sumptuous court while the people
died of famine, as the Bishop of Munster held the city closely
besieged. A contemporary story relates that one of the
queens having said one day to her companions that she did
not believe it conformed with the will of God that the poor
people should be afflicted with so many miseries, the king
conducted her to the market place with his other wives,
ordered her to kneel in the midst of her companions, who
were prostrate like herself, and struck off her head. The
other queens sang "Glory to God in the highest!" and all the
people began to dance around the dead body of the victim.
However, there was nothing left to eat except bread and salt !
Toward the end of the siege the famine became so great that
the flesh of the dead was distributed daily. The city was
finally carried by storm on St. John's Day (1535). John of
Leyden, taken alive, was torn in pieces by red-hot pincers.
The new Zion, sustained by this intoxication of fanaticism
and debauch, had defended itself for fifteen months against
all the forces of Northern Germany.
The Catholics considered the Reformation responsible for
the scandals of Munster. The political schism of Germany
CHAP. XIII.] REVOLUTION IN CREEDS. 169
assumed every day a more definite character; the emperor
waited, temporized, and endeavored to avoid a conflict for
which he did not feel himself ready. All his activity was
not too much in the midst of such a complication of affairs;
he had to defend Austria against the incessant attacks of the
sultan, and the kingdom of Naples against the corsairs of
Barbary ; he was engaged in a desperate struggle with the
King of France.
Alone, confronted by Soulei'man I., Barbaroussa, and
Francis I., he had to master his undisciplined army and the
turbulent Flemish communes, organize the administration of
the New World, extend his thought and action from one end
of the globe to the other, from Buda to Mexico, from Ghent
to Tunis. Thus is explained his long temporizing in regard
to the Reformation. Besides, the hatred of the Catholics for
the Protestants was not so extreme as to willingly sacrifice to
the emperor the liberties of Germany; as the day still con-
tinued when the citizens themselves carried arms, there was
no standing army with which the emperor could be certain
of breaking down all resistance.
But after the peace with France was signed at Crespy
(1544) he resolved to act. Abandoned by the confederates
of Smalkalde, Francis I. abandoned them in turn. Soulei'-
man had just turned his forces against Persia. Charles
found himself then without enemies abroad. The ecumen-
ical council, to the decision of which the two parties had so
long appealed, had at last assembled at Trent (1545), and
after the first sessions all hope of reconciliation between the
opposing doctrines disappeared. War was thenceforward
inevitable. Luther died happy in not seeing it (1546).
As always happens in a confederacy, disorder began in the
heart of the Protestant party. The allies of Smalkalde did
not know how to concert their efforts and succumbed sepa-
rately. Charles, on the contrary, showed firmness and de-
cision, and despite the defection of the Pope terminated
everything in two campaigns.
Upper Germany was subdued as early as 1546 ; the death
of Francis I. at the beginning of 1547 determined the em-
peror to push hostilities more actively. At the battle of
Muhlburg the Spanish infantry at the first shock overthrew
the Saxon militia, and the two chiefs of the league fell into the
hands of Charles V.; these were the Elector of Saxony, who
was made prisoner on the field of battle, and the Landgrave
17 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
of Hesse, who came to give himself up (1547). The emperor
applied to himself, but like a Christian, the words of Caesar.
"I came," he said, "I saw, God conquered."
Charles V. could then believe that the dream so many
times pursued of German unity was about to be realized, that
the imperial power had served its apprenticeship. But he
was quickly undeceived. He wished to solve the religious
question without the Pope ; his interim of Augsburg, a theo-
logical formulary designed to bring the two religious parties
together, discontented everybody (1548). He reserved for
his son Spain, the Netherlands, Naples, and America; he