The Catholic Reformation and the Wars of Religion

FOUNDATIONS OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD HIST 1301 | History The Catholic Reformation and the Wars of Religion The Catholic Church's authorities did not watch helplessly while its adherents turned to other religions. The Catholic Church attempted to address Luther's concerns and implement other essential reforms during the Catholic Reformation, also known as the Counter-Reformation. The Council of Trent in 1545 was one way to do this. There, the bishops and other clergy of Europe declared that salvation depended on both good deeds and faith, and that scripture, as understood by the church, and tradition were both legitimate sources of authority. The transubstantiation concept was likewise confirmed by the council. Aware of serious issues facing the church, the council also implemented a number of reforms. While indulgences were allowed, selling them was not. The council restricted bishops to serving only one bishopric, outlawed church leaders from promoting family members to positions of authority, and improved the education and curbed the opulent lifestyles of Catholic clergy. The establishment of new religious organisations was another facet of the Catholic Reformation. The Society of Jesus, often known as the Jesuits, was established by the aristocrat Ignatius of Loyola in Spain. Its primary responsibility was educating young Catholic men. Along with serving as advisors to Europe's Catholic monarchs, they also took on the task of converting non-Christians to Roman Catholicism. There was no female branch of the Jesuits, in contrast to other religious organisations. Instead, young women were educated by the nuns of the Ursuline order, which was established a few years earlier. Despite the fact that the Catholic Reformation probably stopped a large number of Catholics from defecting to Protestant churches, the new denominations grew in popularity throughout most of Europe. This was a calm procedure at times. In other instances, fierce Catholics and equally fierce Protestants would go to fight to defend what they each considered to be the sole authentic manifestation of the Christian religion. In England, the shift from Catholicism to Protestantism happened more amicably than in other places. Catholic Mary I, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, succeeded her brother Edward as king, but Protestants faced persecution and hundreds of executions as the queen attempted to convert England back to Catholicism. But Mary passed away in 1558 before she could do this. Elizabeth I, her younger half-sister, desired to run a nation that was secure and orderly. Although she persecuted Catholics towards the end of her reign because she believed they were a threat to her Protestant authority, she had a rather tolerant view of religion in her early years as queen. The Act of Supremacy passed by Parliament in 1558 reaffirmed the Church of England's autonomy from the Roman Catholic Church. The Act of Uniformity of 1559, which was passed the next year, restored the Book of Common Prayer as the only recognised form of worship in England. To some, however, who want to retain Catholic ritual, some accommodations were provided. An previous edition of the book omitted the pope's criticism and reworded the description of the communion ceremony to avoid making a direct reference to transubstantiation. The clergy may still dress in customary Catholic garments and jewellery. Puritans, or English Calvinists, made vain attempts to further distance the Church of England from Catholic teaching and practice throughout Elizabeth's reign. Numerous clergy members in the English church were Puritans, who disapproved of both making the sign of the cross after baptism and dressing in Catholic clothes during church sessions. The Puritans also began to disagree with the Church of England's hierarchy, which placed the king at the top of the church, by the 1570s and 1580s. They held that rather than being ruled by a king or queen, churches ought to be autonomous and controlled by assemblies of chosen elders. But Elizabeth would not alter the structure that oversaw the Church of England. Puritans who wanted to break away from the Church of England (known as Separatists) started leaving England under her successor James I's reign in order to settle ideal Christian communities in areas like mainland Europe and North America. Other Puritans also started to depart under the reign of James's son, Charles I. The question of whether a kingdom should be Protestant or Catholic might lead to bloodshed outside of England. The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre on August 23, 1572, in France, marked the end of a bloody conflict between Huguenots and Catholics. The assassins targeted important Huguenots who had travelled to Paris for a royal wedding. Only until Henry IV, a Huguenot, returned to the French throne, converted to Catholicism—the faith practiced by the vast majority of French people—and issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598 would peace return to the country. The decree gave Huguenots the freedom to practise their faith as they pleased while simultaneously making Catholicism the official religion of France. Son and successor of Charles V, Philip II of Spain, put up a fight against Calvinist insurgents in the Spanish Netherlands. From 1568 until a ceasefire was struck in 1609, war continued. (His son Philip III continued the fight after his father Philip's death in 1598.) Although there was peace again, the seven northern provinces became the United Provinces of the Netherlands and declared their independence from Spain. Philip II, who saw himself and Spain as champions of Catholicism, battled to uphold the church's power not just in the Netherlands but also elsewhere. With the aim of returning England to the Catholic Church and cutting off its backing for Protestant insurgents in the Spanish Netherlands, he launched a naval invasion on the country in 1588. The incursion was unsuccessful. The smaller, quicker English ships notoriously outmanoeuvred the Spanish armada, and when the surviving ships headed north, circumnavigating Scotland and Ireland on their way home, the majority were wrecked by a storm. The seventeenth century saw the continuation of the religious warfare. The Holy Roman Empire saw the Thirty Years' War between Catholic and Protestant powers run from 1618 to 1648. As German Lutherans, Calvinists, and Catholics engaged in conflict, other European nations also got involved. Lutheran Sweden and the United Provinces of the Netherlands backed the Protestant German authorities. In an effort to make up for its losses to Sweden in previous wars, Denmark also joined the war with the intention of capturing German territory. France embraced the Protestant cause, mostly as a means of asserting its dominance over the continent. Despite the fact that the soldiers were from several countries, practically all of the engagements took place inside German territory, causing suffering to the local populace as mercenary forces devastated farms and communities. Ultimately, the German Protestants emerged triumphant, and France assumed a leading role in western Europe. The conflict concluded in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, which recognised the independence of all the almost one thousand entities that had comprised the Holy Roman Empire.