Protestant Reforms: An Overiew (The Overview Series)

The vested interest thus created made for a powerful force in support of the dissolutions. There were some notable opponents to the Henrician Reformation, such as Thomas More and Cardinal John Fisher , who were executed for their opposition. There was also a growing party of reformers who were imbued with the Calvinistic, Lutheran and Zwinglian doctrines now current on the Continent. When Henry died he was succeeded by his Protestant son Edward VI , who, through his empowered councillors with the King being only nine years old at his succession and fifteen at his death the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of Northumberland, ordered the destruction of images in churches, and the closing of the chantries.

Yet, at a popular level, religion in England was still in a state of flux. Following a brief Catholic restoration during the reign of Mary — , a loose consensus developed during the reign of Elizabeth I , though this point is one of considerable debate among historians.

An introduction to the Protestant Reformation

This " Elizabethan Religious Settlement " largely formed Anglicanism into a distinctive church tradition. The compromise was uneasy and was capable of veering between extreme Calvinism on one hand and Catholicism on the other. But compared to the bloody and chaotic state of affairs in contemporary France, it was relatively successful, in part because Queen Elizabeth lived so long, until the Puritan Revolution or English Civil War in the 17th century.

The success of the Counter-Reformation on the Continent and the growth of a Puritan party dedicated to further Protestant reform polarised the Elizabethan Age , although it was not until the s that England underwent religious strife comparable to what its neighbours had suffered some generations before.

The early Puritan movement late 16th—17th centuries was Reformed or Calvinist and was a movement for reform in the Church of England. Its origins lay in the discontent with the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. The desire was for the Church of England to resemble more closely the Protestant churches of Europe, especially Geneva. The Puritans objected to ornaments and ritual in the churches as idolatrous vestments, surplices, organs, genuflection , which they castigated as " popish pomp and rags". They also objected to ecclesiastical courts.

Their refusal to endorse completely all of the ritual directions and formulas of the Book of Common Prayer and the imposition of its liturgical order by legal force and inspection sharpened Puritanism into a definite opposition movement. The later Puritan movement, often referred to as dissenters and nonconformists , eventually led to the formation of various reformed denominations. The most famous emigration to America was the migration of Puritan separatists from the Anglican Church of England.

They fled first to Holland, and then later to America to establish the English colony of Massachusetts in New England, which later became one of the original United States. These Puritan separatists were also known as "the Pilgrims ". After establishing a colony at Plymouth which became part of the colony of Massachusetts in , the Puritan pilgrims received a charter from the King of England that legitimised their colony, allowing them to do trade and commerce with merchants in England, in accordance with the principles of mercantilism.

The Puritans persecuted those of other religious faiths. Executions ceased in when King Charles II explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism. The Pilgrims held radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas , and its celebration was outlawed in Boston from to In , the Bishop of Llandaff published the entire Bible in the Welsh language.

The translation had a significant impact upon the Welsh population and helped to firmly establish Protestantism among the Welsh people. Calvinism developed through the Puritan period, following the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, and within Wales' Calvinistic Methodist movement. However few copies of Calvin's writings were available before midth century. The Reformation in Scotland's case culminated ecclesiastically in the establishment of a church along reformed lines, and politically in the triumph of English influence over that of France.

John Knox is regarded as the leader of the Scottish reformation. The Reformation Parliament of repudiated the pope's authority by the Papal Jurisdiction Act , forbade the celebration of the Mass and approved a Protestant Confession of Faith. It was made possible by a revolution against French hegemony under the regime of the regent Mary of Guise , who had governed Scotland in the name of her absent daughter Mary, Queen of Scots then also Queen of France.

Although Protestantism triumphed relatively easily in Scotland, the exact form of Protestantism remained to be determined. The 17th century saw a complex struggle between Presbyterianism particularly the Covenanters and Episcopalianism. The Presbyterians eventually won control of the Church of Scotland , which went on to have an important influence on Presbyterian churches worldwide, but Scotland retained a relatively large Episcopalian minority.

Protestantism also spread from the German lands into France, where the Protestants were nicknamed Huguenots ; this eventually led to decades of civil warfare. Though not personally interested in religious reform, Francis I reigned — initially maintained an attitude of tolerance, in accordance with his interest in the humanist movement. This changed in with the Affair of the Placards. In this act, Protestants denounced the Catholic Mass in placards that appeared across France, even reaching the royal apartments.

The issue of religious faith having been thrown into the arena of politics, Francis came to view the movement as a threat to the kingdom's stability. This led to the first major phase of anti-Protestant persecution in France, in which the Chambre Ardente "Burning Chamber" was established within the Parlement of Paris to deal with the rise in prosecutions for heresy. Several thousand French Protestants fled the country, most notably John Calvin , who emigrated to Basel in before eventually settling in Geneva in Calvin continued to take an interest in the religious affairs of his native land and, from his base in Geneva, beyond the reach of the French kings, regularly trained pastors to lead congregations in France.

Despite heavy persecution by King Henry II of France reigned — , the Reformed Church of France , largely Calvinist in direction, made steady progress across large sections of the nation, in the urban bourgeoisie and parts of the aristocracy , appealing to people alienated by the obduracy and the complacency of the Catholic establishment. French Protestantism, though its appeal increased under persecution, came to acquire a distinctly political character, made all the more obvious by the conversions of nobles during the s.

This established the preconditions for a series of destructive and intermittent conflicts, known as the Wars of Religion. The civil wars gained impetus with the sudden death of Henry II in , which began a prolonged period of weakness for the French crown. Atrocity and outrage became the defining characteristics of the time, illustrated at their most intense in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of August , when the Catholic party annihilated between 30, and , Huguenots across France. The wars only concluded when Henry IV , himself a former Huguenot, issued the Edict of Nantes , promising official toleration of the Protestant minority, but under highly restricted conditions.

Catholicism remained the official state religion, and the fortunes of French Protestants gradually declined over the next century, culminating in Louis XIV's Edict of Fontainebleau , which revoked the Edict of Nantes and made Catholicism the sole legal religion of France. In response to the Edict of Fontainebleau, Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg declared the Edict of Potsdam October , giving free passage to Huguenot refugees and tax-free status to them for ten years.

In the late 17th century many Huguenots fled to England, the Netherlands, Prussia, Switzerland, and the English and Dutch overseas colonies. A separate Protestant community, of the Lutheran faith, existed in the newly conquered — province of Alsace , its status not affected by the Edict of Fontainebleau. In the early 16th century, Spain had a different political and cultural milieu from its Western and Central European neighbors in several respects, which affected the mentality and the reaction of the nation towards the Reformation. Spain, which had only recently managed to complete the reconquest of the Peninsula from the Moors in , had been preoccupied with converting the Muslim and Jewish population of the newly conquered regions through the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in The rulers of the nation stressed political, cultural, and religious unity, and by the time of the Lutheran Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition was already 40 years old and had the capability of quickly dealing with any new movement that the Catholic Church perceived or interpreted to be religious heterodoxy.

This led to a Counter-Reformation in Spain in the s. During the s, the Spanish Inquisition had created an atmosphere of suspicion and sought to root out any religious thought seen as suspicious. As early as , the Pope had written a letter to the Spanish monarchy warning against allowing the unrest in Northern Europe to be replicated in Spain.

Between and , printing presses in Spain were tightly controlled and any books of Protestant teaching were prohibited. Between and , Protestantism in Spain was still able to gain followers clandestinely, and in cities such as Seville and Valladolid adherents would secretly meet at private houses to pray and study the Bible. Notable reformers included Dr. Under Philip II , conservatives in the Spanish church tightened their grip, and those who refused to recant such as Rodrigo de Valer were condemned to life imprisonment.

In May , sixteen Spanish Lutherans were burnt at the stake: In October another thirty were executed. Spanish Protestants who were able to flee the country were to be found in at least a dozen cities in Europe, such as Geneva , where some of them embraced Calvinist teachings. Those who fled to England were given support by the Church of England. Upon the arrival of the Protestant Reformation, Calvinism reached some Basques through the translation of the Bible into the Basque language by Joanes Leizarraga. The Reformation did not succeed in Portugal, as its spread was frustrated for similar reasons to those in Spain.

The Reformation in the Netherlands, unlike in many other countries, was not initiated by the rulers of the Seventeen Provinces , but instead by multiple popular movements, which in turn were bolstered by the arrival of Protestant refugees from other parts of the continent. While the Anabaptist movement enjoyed popularity in the region in the early decades of the Reformation, Calvinism, in the form of the Dutch Reformed Church , became the dominant Protestant faith in the country from the s onward. In the early 17th century internal theological conflict within the Calvinist church between two tendencies of Calvinism, the Gomarists and the liberal Arminians or Remonstrants , resulted in Gomarist Calvinism becoming the de facto state religion.

Harsh persecution of Protestants by the Spanish government of Philip II contributed to a desire for independence in the provinces, which led to the Eighty Years' War and, eventually, the separation of the largely Protestant Dutch Republic from the Catholic-dominated Southern Netherlands present-day Belgium. Luxembourg , a part of the Spanish Netherlands, remained Catholic. Much of the population of the Kingdom of Hungary adopted Protestantism during the 16th century. They found this in the teaching of Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther. The spread of Protestantism in the country was assisted by its large ethnic German minority, which could understand and translate the writings of Martin Luther.

While Lutheranism gained a foothold among the German- and Slovak-speaking populations, Calvinism became widely accepted among ethnic Hungarians.

In the more independent northwest, the rulers and priests, protected now by the Habsburg Monarchy , which had taken the field to fight the Turks, defended the old Catholic faith. They dragged the Protestants to prison and the stake wherever they could. Such strong measures only fanned the flames of protest, however. Protestants likely formed a majority of Hungary's population at the close of the 16th century, but Counter-Reformation efforts in the 17th century reconverted a majority of the kingdom to Catholicism.

A significant Protestant minority remained, most of it adhering to the Calvinist faith. In the Transylvanian Diet of Turda decreed the free practice of both the Catholic and Lutheran religions, but prohibited Calvinism. Ten years later, in , the Diet extended this freedom, declaring that "It is not allowed to anybody to intimidate anybody with captivity or expulsion for his religion". Between and , there was a series of anti-Habsburg uprisings calling for equal rights and freedom for all Christian denominations, with varying success; the uprisings were usually organised from Transylvania.

The Habsburg-sanctioned Counter-Reformation efforts in the 17th century reconverted the majority of the kingdom to Catholicism. The centre of Protestant learning in Hungary has for some centuries been the University of Debrecen. Founded in , the University was situated in an area of Eastern Hungary under Ottoman Turkish rule during the s and s, being allowed Islamic toleration and thus avoiding Counter-Reformation persecution.

Transylvania in what is today's Romania was destined to be a "dumping ground for undesirables" by the Habsburg monarchy. People who did not comfort the Habsburgs and the Catholic Church were forcibly sent there.

Short Overview

Centuries of this practice allowed diverse Protestant traditions to emerge in Romania, including Lutheranism , Calvinism and Unitarianism. Calvinism was popular among Hungarians who inhabited the southwestern parts of the present-day Ukraine. Their descendants are still there, see the Sub-Carpathian Reformed Church. There were also Calvinists in the northwestern parts of the country, but any traces of Protestantism were then erased by the Counter-Reformation in Poland.

The first Protestant congregation was founded in Brest-Litovsk in the Reformed tradition. Any traces of Protestantism were erased by the Counter-Reformation in Poland. His desire for an annulment of his marriage was known as the King's Great Matter.

Ultimately Pope Clement VII refused the petition; consequently it became necessary for the King to assert his lordship over the Catholic Church in his realm to give legal effect to his wishes. This challenge to Papal supremacy resulted in a breach with the Catholic Church. By , the Irish Parliament had agreed to the change in status of the country from that of a Lordship to that of Kingdom of Ireland. Unlike similar movements for religious reform on the continent of Europe, the various phases of the English Reformation as it developed in Ireland were largely driven by changes in government policy, to which public opinion in England gradually accommodated itself.

However, a number of factors complicated the adoption of the religious innovations in Ireland; the majority of the population there adhered to the Catholic Church. However, in the city of Dublin the reformation took hold under the auspices of George Browne. Word of the Protestant reformers reached Italy in the s but never caught on.

Its development was stopped by the Counter-Reformation, the Inquisition and also popular disinterest. Not only was the Church highly aggressive in seeking out and suppressing heresy, but there was a shortage of Protestant leadership. No one translated the Bible into Italian; few tracts were written. No core of Protestantism emerged. The few preachers who did take an interest in "Lutheranism," as it was called in Italy, were suppressed or went into exile to northern countries where their message was well received.

As a result, the Reformation exerted almost no lasting influence in Italy, except for strengthening the Catholic Church and motivating the Counter-Reformation. Some Protestants left Italy and became outstanding activists of the European Reformation, mainly in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth e. In , the Waldensians , who had been already present centuries before the Reformation, aligned themselves and adopted the Calvinist theology.

The Waldensian Church survived in the Western Alps through many persecutions and remains a Protestant church in Italy. In the first half of the 16th century, the enormous Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth was a country of many creeds, but Catholicism remained the dominating religion.

The Duchy of Prussia , which was a Polish fief , emerged as a key center of the movement, with numerous publishing houses issuing not only Bibles, but also catechisms, in German, Polish and Lithuanian. Lutheranism gained popularity in the northern part of the country, while Calvinism caught the interest of the nobility known as szlachta , mainly in Lesser Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In , the Polish Brethren appeared as yet another reformation movement. The Commonwealth was unique in Europe in the 16th century for its widespread tolerance confirmed by the Warsaw Confederation.

In , the Brest Bible was published see also Bible translations into Polish. After the Deluge , and other wars of the midth century in which all enemies of Poland were either Protestant or Orthodox Christians, the Poles' attitude changed, and the Counter-Reformation prevailed: Finally, in , the Silent Sejm banned non-Catholics from becoming deputies of the Parliament. The Reformation was very insignificant in what is now Moldova and saw single congregations of Hussitism and Calvinism being founded across Besserabia.

The first books in Slovene, Catechismus and Abecedarium , were written by Trubar. Calvinism was popular among the Hungarians who inhabited the southernmost parts of what is now Slovakia. Back then, Slovakia used to be a part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Lutheranism reached northern parts of the country. Vojvodina turned partially Lutheran. Motivating factors in their decision to adopt aspects of the Reformation included the historical rivalry and mistrust between the Greek Orthodox and Catholic church along with their concerns of Jesuit priests entering Greek lands in their attempts to propagate the teachings of the Counter-Reformation to the Greek populace.

He subsequently sponsored Maximos of Gallipoli 's translation of the New Testament into the Modern Greek language and it was published in Geneva in Upon Lucaris's death in , the conservative factions within the Eastern Orthodox Church held two synods: The Reformation spread throughout Europe beginning in , reaching its peak between and , and ending in The high point of the Reformation occurred at some point between and In , it was first considered a serious threat to the Catholic Church and the Papacy at the Council of Trent, prompting counterreformational measures by Catholic religious hierarchy.

The Thirty Years' War began in and brought a drastic territorial and demographic decline when the House of Habsburg introduced counterreformational measures throughout their vast possessions in Central Europe. This effort concluded in , as did the Reformation itself. Common historical consensus holds that the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation both ended in , when the Thirty Years' War concluded with the Peace of Westphalia. There is no universal agreement on the exact or approximate date the Reformation ended. Various interpretations emphasize different dates, entire periods, or argue that the Reformation never really ended.

For the first time since the days of Martin Luther, political and national convictions again outweighed religious convictions in Europe. The treaty also effectively ended the Papacy's pan-European political power. Pope Innocent X declared the treaty "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all times" in his bull Zelo Domus Dei.

The Protestant Reformation

European sovereigns, Catholic and Protestant alike, ignored his verdict. The following outcomes of the Reformation regarding human capital formation, the Protestant ethic , economic development , governance , and "dark" outcomes have been identified by scholars: Jacob argues that there has been a dramatic shift in the historiography of the Reformation.

Until the s, historians focused their attention largely on the great leaders and theologians of the 16th century, especially Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. Their ideas were studied in depth. However, the rise of the new social history in the s look at history from the bottom up, not from the top down.

Historians began to concentrate on the values, beliefs and behavior of the people at large. She finds, "in contemporary scholarship, the Reformation is now seen as a vast cultural upheaval, a social and popular movement, textured and rich because of its diversity. Partly due to Martin Luther's love for music, music became important in Lutheranism. The study and practice of music was encouraged in Protestant-majority countries.

Songs such as the Lutheran hymns , or the Calvinist Psalter became tools for the spread of Protestant ideas and beliefs, as well as identity flags. Similar attitudes developed among Catholics, who in turn encouraged the creation and use of music for religious purposes.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Reformation disambiguation. Not to be confused with Reform movement. Theologies of seminal figures. Political and religious conflicts. Peace of Westphalia Rise of Pietism. Evangelicalism Charismatic movement Neo-charismatic movement. Nondenominational churches House churches. Jesus in Christianity Virgin birth Crucifixion Resurrection. Major denominational families in Christianity: Church of the East.

Assyrian Church of the East. Ancient Church of the East. Council of Ephesus Council of Chalcedon Execution of Jan Hus in Konstanz Utraquist Hussitism was allowed there alongside the Roman Catholic confession. By the time the Reformation arrived, the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Margraviate of Moravia both had majority Hussite populations for decades now.

Martin Luther and History of Lutheranism. This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in German. June Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation like Deepl or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.

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His manuscript is considered to be a cornerstone in Basque literature, and a pioneering attempt towards Basque language standardization. The History of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Man between God and the Devil p. Retrieved 27 July Explorations in Economic History. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. Journal of Political Economy. From Babylon to Eternity: Documents of the English Reformation pp.

Mary Dyer of Rhode Island: The Colonial Period to the New Frontier. Catholic Higher Education in Protestant America: The Jesuits and Harvard in the Age of the University. Johns Hopkins University Press. A Study in National Culture. Celebrating America's Greatest Holiday. Densil Morgan, "Calvinism in Wales: Retrieved 7 February Scandinavian Journal of Economics. Evidence from Prussia". Reading the Bible and Other Skills". Micro Evidence from Contemporary Germany". Social Science Research Network.

Religion, Individual, and Political Preferences". Evidence from the well-being effect of unemployment".

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David; Kemmelmeier, Markus 1 November Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Testing the Weber Hypothesis in the German Lands". The details of the development and spread of what would become Lutheranism are outside the confines of U. Support came from sincere religious reformers, while others manipulated the movement to gain control of valuable church property. Not surprisingly, a Counter-Reformation developed to combat the new reforms and bolster the doctrine and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. For a time England, too, remained loyal to Rome.

The term Protestant was not initially applied to the reformers, but later was used to describe all groups protesting Roman Catholic orthodoxy. Lutheranism would have some impact on the development of American history, but far more important were the efforts of the reformers of the reform movement. Ideas set forth by John Calvin , a French theologian living in Geneva, were particularly influential. The Puritans , Huguenots and Presbyterians played prominently in the settlement of America and in the molding of colonial beliefs and values. In Anti-intellectualism in American Life, Hofstadter delineates the social movements that altered the role of intellect in American society from a vir Religious life in early America is often equated with the fire-and-brimstone Puritanism best embodied by the theology of Cotton Mather.

Yet, by the ni Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: This book tells an extraordinary story of the people of early New England and their spiritual lives. It is about ordinary people--farmers, housewives,