Johann Maier von Eck

Johann Maier von Eck

Johann Eck is best remembered for his debates with Martin Luther during the initial period of the Reformation. He was born Johann Maier in the city of Eck in southern Germany on November 13 (some say November 15), 1486, and later took the name of his city as his surname. At age 12, he entered Heidelburg University and went on to Tübingen, where he received his master’s degree.

He continued his studies in both theology and classical languages. In 1508, at age 22, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest. In 1510, at age 24, he received a doctorate in theology. After receiving his doctorate, he went to the University of Ingolstadt in southern Germany as a full professor.

Eck was a humanist in the tradition of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and was well versed in Greek and Hebrew. He was interested in many theological topics, and when the monk Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the castle church door in Wittenberg in 1517, he at first received a cordial reception from his fellow humanist Eck. Luther’s expectation in his posting of the Ninety-five Theses was a debate with fellow academics and church theologians, and he hoped for gradual reform of the Roman Catholic Church.

As Luther’s writings became almost instantly popular, Eck saw Luther’s theology as both wrong and dangerous for the Roman Catholic Church and decided to take action against Luther. In 1518, he circulated among other academics a work attacking Luther’s theology titled Obelisci and in it accused Luther of being a follower of John Huss, a Bohemian reformer from the previous century who was burned at the stake for his views.


Luther’s fellow professor Carlstadt responded to the Obelisci with a document refuting Eck and declared himself ready to meet Eck in a public disputation. This series of debates took place at the University of Leipzig, beginning in June 1519, and continuing through July.

The debate was academic in style (as would befit university professors). Eck clearly won the debate against Carlstadt, forcing Luther to defend his doctrines. While Eck and Luther were more evenly matched in intellect and debating ability, most agree that Eck won the debates.

Returning to Ingolstadt, Eck attempted to get the other universities to condemn Luther’s theological writings but failed. He continued to write against Luther and in 1520 went to Rome to help with the official Catholic attack on Luther. Eck was a significant contributor to the papal document ExsurgeDomine (Arise, O Lord), which condemned Luther’s teaching as heretical.

Eck continued to write and campaign against Luther as well as other Protestants, particularly Ulrich Zwingli. Eck debated supporters of Zwingli in 1526 near Zürich, Switzerland. He never succeeded in his goal of bringing about a clear condemnation of Luther by the political authorities. Luther was seen in the eyes of many Germans as a champion for Germany against the influence of Rome and was simply too popular among both the nobles and common persons to be suppressed effectively.

Eck is also known for his translation of the Bible into German, published in 1537. (Luther had published his own translation into German about 10 years previous.) Roman Catholics normally used the Latin Bible, but Eck as a humanist followed Erasmus and others in promoting the Bible in the vernacular, the language of the people. Eck died on February 13 (some say February 10), 1543, in Ingolstadt.

Divine Faith in Europe

Divine Faith in Europe

Between 1730 and 1760, western Europe experienced a revivalist movement that advocated acceptance of the divine faith doctrine. This movement later came to be known as the First Great Awakening. The title was used to differentiate this first rise in evangelical revivalism from the second wave of religious fervor that surfaced between 1800 and 1801, which become known as the Second Great Awakening.

During the First Great Awakening, the acceptance of the divine faith doctrine in Europe was most prevalent in England, Scotland, Wales, and Germany, although the movement also received a good deal of attention in Ireland, Holland, Switzerland, Sweden, and France.

At the same time, a similar but separate revivalist movement took place across the Atlantic in the United States. Despite the common factors in the teachings of the various evangelists, the divine faith movement was not a single movement but a large number of highly individualistic movements that surfaced around the Western Hemisphere.

In addition to Anglicans and dissenters in England, the Protestant sects that endorsed divine faith included Calvinists and Arminians in England, Presbyterians in Scotland, Lutherans and Pietists in Saxony, and Puritan Congregationalists in New England.


All proponents of the divine faith movement advocated a strong faith in the divine will of God. Most of them taught that conversion must come from a heartfelt acceptance of Christian teachings rather than from a blind acceptance of religious dogma or from confessional conformity.

Advocates taught that God was actively involved in shaping history and that he was constantly guiding the day-to-day activities of believers. To the early evangelicals, prayer was the means by which chaos could be averted. Therefore, it became the responsibility of all believers to intercede for those who did not understand this fact. Believers were also encouraged to pray for one another.

The divine faith movement was built around four cornerstones: conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism. To the evangelical, converting others to the faith had been a major element of Christianity since the formation of the early church following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Activism was, therefore, a foregone conclusion because all believers were required to reach out to those inside and outside their own churches and countries.

These two concepts had been the motivating forces behind the practice of sending missionaries to the farthest reaches of the globe since the founding of the early church. Because the basis for all Christian faith comes from the Holy Bible, the insistence on biblicism reminded believers that they were to be led by the Word of God and to refrain from following false prophets.

The concept of crucicentrism was intended to keep the focus of the Christian on Christ, who gave his life on the Cross of Calvary to save the world from the darkness of sin. The overreaching goal of the early evangelical movement was, therefore, to bring about a global fellowship of all humans who worked together to understand and advance the will of God.

The time of the First Great Awakening has been called the age of faith as well as the kala of pietism and the kala of evangelism. The motivation for spreading the doctrine of divine faith arose from the Protestant determination to mitigate the effects of the age of Enlightenment, which had intrigued most of the upper and educated classes in western Europe and the United States with its emphasis on reason and individualism. Advocates of the evangelical movement taught that many things should be accepted on faith alone because some things could never be proved by science.

The Good of Humankind

The concept of individuality was viewed by early evangelicals as counterproductive because it encouraged people to promote their own interests rather than working for the good of all humankind.

Instead of emphasizing the concept of the scarcity of resources that was a significant element in the classical liberal thought that had gained momentum in the age of Enlightenment, proponents of divine faith taught that God had granted humans dominion over nature and animals, which were to be used to better the lives of all humans.

Members of the lower and working classes who were more inclined than others to accept the theory of divine faith without reservation attended revivals in large numbers, resulting in a rapidly increasing number of converts.

In autumn 1729, the widely celebrated and respected Episcopalian minister George Whitfield (1714–70), known as the “apostle of the British Empire,” traveled to the United States, where he converted large crowds of Americans to the divine faith movement. Whitfield was considered the founder of Methodism, a name that at the time was loosely and sometimes derisively used to refer to all evangelicals.

Whitfield was strictly Calvinist in his beliefs, although he was instrumental in shaping the beliefs of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists as well. Throughout his lifetime, Whitfield preached 18,000 sermons, an average of 500 a year.

While in America, Whitfield publicly broke with John Wesley (1703–91), the founder of the official Methodist Church and one of the great evangelists of the period. Wesley taught that through grace Christians were capable of realizing a state of perfect love with God.

He encouraged his followers to become involved in fighting injustice wherever they found it. Whatever their commonalities, Whitfield and Wesley were unable to reconcile their divergent beliefs on salvation theology.

Wesley believed that when babies were born, some had been predestined to become Christians, while others had not. To Whitfield, salvation was a personal experience that was derived from conscious choice rather than from predestination.

Henry Venn (1796–1873), who became the leader of the second wave of evangelistic fervor, was heavily influenced by both Whitfield and Wesley. However, he found himself treading a middle path between the doctrines supported by these prominent evangelists. To Venn, clemency and humanitarianism were irrevocably joined to moralism and to the avoidance of sin.

Together, the influence of these three evangelists ignited reform movements in education and penal systems, and their teachings were instrumental in planting seeds that blossomed into antislavery movements, which in turn led to the eventual abolition of slavery.

Dissenters in England

Dissenters in England

The term dissenters refers to those who officially or unofficially separate themselves from an established or state church. This term is sometimes used interchangeably in the context of early modern English history with Nonconformists.

However, nonconformity is a later development within the larger dissenter movement, usually denoting those who disagreed with the state church in both practice and principle. In England, religious dissenters did not constitute a single discernible movement or aktivitas but a series of protests against the established Church of England during the 16th to 18th centuries.

While the history of religious dissent is as old as Christianity itself, dissent in England can certainly be traced to the time of John Wycliffe and the sect known as the lollards. Wycliffe was a 14th century English university professor whose greatest contribution was his translation of the Scriptures into the English vernacular. He believed that the Bible was the supreme authority for religious matters, that the clergy should not own property, and that the Catholic understanding of transubstantiation had no basis in Scripture.


While his ideas were condemned by the Catholic Church, the later, more radical sect of the lollards adopted some of his views and continued on until the time of the English reformations in the 16th century, consequently setting the stage for later religious dissents.

English dissenters began to appear once again during the time of the Protestant Reformation in England under Edward VI, Elizabeth I, the Stuart kings, and during and after the time of the interregnum of the English Civil War. Many of these had hoped for a purer reformation of religion in England and expressed their dissatisfaction with the efforts of the English monarchy to continue to control the established state church.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, many of her Protestant advisers had also hoped for a reformation in England similar to the continental reformations. They desired a total break with the vestiges of the more liturgical and episcopal structures, which they felt were entirely consistent with the medieval Catholicism from which they had separated.

During this period, dissenters and Nonconformists began to refer to the group now commonly known as Puritans. Many of these English Puritans disliked both the structure of the episcopacy and an established state church. They began to separate themselves from the Church of England and have their own private meetings.

While Elizabeth I would attempt to get her clergy to conform, many of these dissenters would continue to spread their ideas about church government and worship, attracting more followers. In 1620, a group of these dissenters would sail to America on the May-flower and settle in New England in attempt to find religious freedom in the New World. Consequently, they transplanted their own religious dissent to America profoundly shaping both early American religion and national identify in the process.

During the time of the English Civil War (1642–51) and the interregnum (1649–60), the dissenters seized power and abolished the Church of England. They began to practice iconoclasm, destroying churches and stained glass and imprisoning many of the Anglican bishops.

Parliament was now the head of the Church of England and it quickly instituted a more presbyterian form of church government. The Westminster Assembly now became the sole and permanent committee dedicated to the reform of the English Church.

In May of 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne of England from exile in France. He made attempts to ensure some sort of religious toleration with his Declaration of Indulgence. However, the now mostly Anglican Parliament had forced him to withdraw this measure. Instead they passed what is known as the Clarendon code, which established Anglicanism as the true state religion of England and made overt threats toward any that might not conform.

The Test Act of 1673 required all persons in civil or military offices to subscribe to the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and to affirm that they did not believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation. Furthermore, they had to receive the sacrament of the Anglican Church within three months after admittance to office.

Eventually, in 1689, Parliament passed the Toleration Act, which allowed the English people to practice whatever religion they desired so long as they were trinitarian Protestants. This act however did not suspend any of their civil disabilities that went along with their dissenting religion.

The Test Act, which was expanded in 1678, was not suspended until 1828. In 1829, Parliament passed the Roman Catholic Relief Act, which began to give freedom to Roman Catholics to practice their religion freely for the first time since before the Reformation.

Consequently, many of the dissenters in English religious history survive in present-day Christian denominations. Many of these are now known as “Free Churches.” Some of these are Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, Quakers, and Moravians.

Diet of Worms

Diet of Worms

The Imperial Diet (German Reichstag) of Worms refers to Martin Luther’s legal appearance before Charles V in April 1521. There Luther defended himself before the civil government regarding the Roman Catholic Church’s condemnations of him as a heretic.

The Protestant Reformation began on October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther was convinced that the practices of the church were in error but he did not initially see himself protesting against the leadership of the church; instead, he felt he was trying to bring reform to the church.

Several debates and many tracts later, Luther had become a popular figure in Germany. For many reasons, Germans were unhappy with the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, and resented the fact that Rome, rather than Germany, was telling German citizens what to do.


In addition, there had been much maneuvering surrounding the 1519 election of Charles V. The pope and Rome were not in favor of Charles V’s election, and there was little love lost between these two powerful figures. Yet Charles V wanted to cooperate with Rome, if only to show that he (and not the pope) had the power over Germany and its controversies.

In 1520 Pope Leo X wrote a document (papal bull) condemning Martin Luther, and describing him as a heretic. Luther was not excommunicated from the church at that time, but he knew it would not be long in coming. Yet Luther had political supporters in Germany, most notably several princes, including Elector Frederick the Wise, who was one of the small number of electors who chose a new emperor.

When the controversy was brought to Charles’s attention in 1520, he did not want to interfere in a church affair, seeing potentially much to lose and little to gain in getting involved. After some negotiating, Charles agreed to a hearing at the next German diet in April 1521, as long as the princes agreed to support his decision, and they did. He agreed also to grant Luther safe conduct (a significant issue, as one who was named a heretic was technically an outlaw in the Empire and could be killed without penalty).

Accompanied by an Imperial herald, in early April 1521, Luther slowly went from Wittenberg to the city of Worms, a journey of several hundred miles, preaching at several churches along the way. He was hailed as a satria by the townspeople in the various cities. Charles V was present when Luther arrived, conducting many other items of business. (The issue with Luther was only a small part of the schedule for the Diet.)

On April 17, 1521, Luther appeared before Charles, the papal envoy Alexander, and the princes of Germany. On a table nearby were piled high all of Luther’s writings. There he was asked two questions—were the writings his, and would he retract them? Luther answered that the writings were his, but that he needed more time to consider the answer to the second question.

Appearing the next day, Luther was asked again whether he would retract his writings, and his response was “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.”

While Luther is often credited as saying, “Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me. Amen,” most scholars believe this to be a later addition by one of Luther’s followers. A small committee was appointed by Charles to negotiate with Luther to see if he would retract portions of his statements. Luther was ready to admit that he overstated some of his attacks on the pope and church practices, but was unwilling to bend on any of his theological statements.

Faced with an impasse, Luther was dismissed, with a letter of safe conduct for 21 days. On his journey back to Wittenberg, Luther was kidnapped by soldiers loyal to Frederick the Wise and secretly taken to Frederick’s castle in Wartburg where he stayed for several months until the initial reaction to the Diet had quieted down.

Pope Clement VII

Pope Clement VII

Pope Clement VII was born in 1478 as Giulio de Medici and died on September 22, 1534, in Rome. He was a member of the powerful Florentine de’ Medici family. In his youth he was educated by his uncle, the powerful Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Another uncle, Pope Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici), made him cardinal on September 28, 1513. Because of his family’s control over much of the politics of northern Italy, he was one of the favorite candidates for pope in the next conclave, but he was not elected to the papacy until November 18, 1523.

During his reign as pope, Clement was heavily involved in the conflict between French king Francis I and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Clement took the side of the French and organized the League of Cognac of France, Venice, and Florence on May 22, 1526.

On Italian soil Clement was thrown into an ongoing territorial conflict with the city-state of Colonna, which had for years been invading the Papal States. On September 20, 1526, Clement was shut up in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo while the Vatican was plundered by Colonna soldiers. German Lutheran soldiers also sacked Rome during his pontificate, possibly with the blessings of the Holy Roman Emperor.


A treaty with Charles V in February 1530 brought peace once again to Italy, a peace that did not last long. Clement VII is best known as the pope who denied the divorce of Henry VIII, king of England, and Queen Catherine of Aragon and denied the validity of the marriage of Henry to Anne Boleyn.

Clement eventually excommunicated the king and the English Reformation ensued. Clement helped support the Capuchin reform of the Order of St. Francis of Assisi and continued the patronage of the great artists Michelangelo and Raphael Santi. Clement was the pope who ordered the painting of the great fresco of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

Counter-Reformation (Catholic Reformation) in Europe

Counter-Reformation in Europe

Beginning in the late 15th century, calls for reform of the Catholic Church “in head and members”—that is, in respect to both the papal administration and the life of the faithful—had become commonplace in all ecclesiastical circles.

However, in the early 16th century, there were increasing calls from many sides for the calling of a General Council. The Fifth Lateran Council of 1512–17, called by Pope Julius II, undertook various reforms, but its pronouncements had little effect.

If reform “in the head” was stymied by political and bureaucratic inertia, reform “in the members” was proceeding ahead. The late 15th century saw reforms within the Franciscan, Augustinian, and Carmelite orders, leading, in the case of the Franciscans and Augustinians, to the founding of separate branches of the orders incorporating friars following a stricter version of their rule. It was indeed from the observant branch of the Augustinians that Martin Luther came.

There was also a revival of the study of the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose work had been neglected in most universities (outside his own Dominican order) in favor of the via moderna represented by William of Ockham and Gabriel Biel. Cardinal Tomasso de Vio (1469–1534), known as Cajetan, a leading Dominican scholar and superior general of the order, led the way with new works on Thomistic theology.


At the same time, scholars using humanistic methods called for new approaches to education and theology, most notably Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (c. 1455–1536) in France, John Colet (1467–1519) and Sir Thomas More (1478–1535) in England.

In Spain Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisernos, an Observant Franciscan, carried out reforms of the church in Spain and opened the University of Alcalá in 1508, where many of the new methods of learning were cultivated. It was there that the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, incorporating Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts, was completed in 1517 and published three years later.

During the 15th century, a movement of spiritual renewal known as the Modern Devotion (Devotio Moderna) had attracted followers among both clergy and laity, especially in Northern Europe. This movement stressed personal devotion and conversion, rather than theological speculation.

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis (1418) was the most popular representative work of this period. By the end of the century, groups of reformers that focused on personal piety and charitable works had emerged in several cities in Italy.

The Oratory of Divine Love, founded in Genoa by a layman, Ettore Vernazza, in 1497, brought together both clergy and laity in pursuit of holiness and good works. Vernazza moved to Rome early in the 16th century and founded an Oratory there. Branches of the Oratory were founded in a number of Italian cities, where they were the seedbeds of many later reform initiatives.

The foundation of new religious orders was central to the reforming efforts of the period. Several of these orders were of a new type, “clerks regular”—that is, priests (and in some cases lay brothers) living according to a religious rule, but not bound to celebration of the Divine Office in community as were monastic or mendicant orders.

This mode of living suited their orientation to active life, including preaching, teaching, and the hearing of confessions. The first of these orders were the Theatines, founded by Gaetano Thiene (1480–1547) and Gian Pietro Carafa (1476–1559), then bishop of Chieti, both of whom had been members of the Oratory of Divine Love. Their order was approved by Pope Clement VII in 1524.

Other such orders included the Clerks Regular of St. Paul, also known as the Barnabites, founded in Milan by Anthony Maria Zaccaria in 1533, and the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the best-known Counter-Reformation order. The Capuchins, officially approved in 1528 and active in spreading Catholic reform, were one of several offshoots of the Observant Franciscans, whose apostolate was nevertheless similar to that of the new orders.

The period also saw the foundation of the first orders of women oriented to the active life, including teaching and care of the sick. The best known of these were the Ursulines, founded in Brescia in 1535 by Angela Merici, a Franciscan associate who had also been a member of the Oratory of Divine Love.

For the first 20 years after Luther’s emergence onto the general European scene in 1517, it was by no means clear that his movement would provoke a split in the church. The doctrine of justification, which formed the basis of Luther’s teaching, had been much debated in the 15th century, especially within the schools of the via moderna from which Luther himself had emerged.

While his interpretation of this doctrine led Luther to reject the sacramental and hierarchical system of the Catholic Church, there were many who desired to preserve that system but at the same time adopt at least some of his theology. Likewise many of the attacks by Luther and his followers against corruption in the church echoed the concerns of both humanist and Observantine reformers.

Thus the writings of important bishops and thinkers were suspected of heresy in their teachings on grace and justification. The suspicions of the more traditional among the hierarchy were further confirmed when Bernardino Ochino, vicar-general of the Capuchins, and the popular preacher Pietro Martire Vermigli fled to Switzerland in 1542 and openly espoused Protestant doctrines.

Gaining Momentum for Reform

The aktivitas of institutional reform gained momentum in the 1530s. Paul III, pope from 1534 to 1549, made a number of the leading reformers cardinals, increasing their influence within the church. In 1536, he commissioned a group of these same men to study the problems confronting the church. Their report, the Consilium de emendanda ecclesiae, presented in 1537, advised reform of the papal curia, better discipline for bishops, and reform of the religious orders.

This was the aktivitas for a coming General Council, for which not only church reformers, but likewise many secular rulers, in particular the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, had been calling for some time. Convocation of a council, however, was impeded by the continuing war between the emperor and the king of France.

The council was finally convened at Trent in 1545. Protestants were invited to send observers, but none attended. The French likewise stayed away from the early sessions of the council, both because of its location in Imperial territory and because of suspicion that it would take measures that would interfere with the French king’s attempts to control the church in France.

The council’s doctrinal decrees reaffirmed traditional teaching in areas challenged by Protestants, such as the doctrine of free will and the sacraments. The disciplinary decrees of the council strengthened the authority of bishops over the clergy in their dioceses, at the same time demanding that bishops and other holders of pastoral responsibilities personally reside in their jurisdictions.

The council mandated the foundation of seminaries in every diocese for the training of priests, an innovation that was perhaps the most influential in the formation of the early modern Catholic Church.

The council also recognized the importance of the new medium of print by establishing the Index of Forbidden Books and providing that all works dealing with religious questions be approved beforehand by the local bishop.

The publication of the first index was the work of Pope Paul IV, whose reign was marked by an intensification of the efforts to stamp out heresy in Italy. While he himself was a reformer, he had suspected many Counter-Reformation figures of excessive sympathy with Protestantism, some of whom had to appear before Inquisition tribunals.

Council of Trent

Council of Trent

The institutional reforms mandated by the Council of Trent were put into action only gradually. Pius IV set up a Congregation for the Council in 1563 to supervise its implementation; this was the first of the Roman congregations that became the central administration of the Catholic Church.

His successor, Pius V (reigned 1566–72), issued the Roman Catechism, a summary of Catholic teaching, and a revision of the Roman Missal that imposed a uniform standard for the liturgy of the Roman Rite.

Beyond Rome, the application of the Council of Trent, which proceeded gradually, nation by nation and diocese by diocese, depended on both the local bishops and the cooperation of secular rulers.

The council was applied relatively quickly in Spain and in parts of Italy. Cardinal Charles Borromeo (1538–84), archbishop of Milan and nephew of Pope Pius IV, set the pattern for many of these reforms. He established a seminary and enacted other provisions of the council in the administration of the diocese.

He brought the Ursulines and other new orders to Milan, and encouraged the work of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, which had been founded in 1536 for the purpose of the religious education of children and included both clergy and laypersons. His efforts extended beyond his diocese throughout northern Italy and Switzerland.

By the end of the Council of Trent, the Jesuit order had gained numerous vocations and considerable influence. Several Jesuit theologians participated in the council. The Jesuits had begun the first overseas missionary work in America, Africa, and particularly East Asia; Saint Francis Xavier (1509–52), one of Ignatius Loyola’s original companions, traveled to Goa in 1542 and spent the rest of his life evangelizing in India, the East Indies, and Japan, dying as he was preparing to enter China.

The Jesuits were also active within Europe, establishing schools and preaching to the public. In their schools, they combined humanist and Scholastic methods, aiming at attracting the ablest boys and those from the most influential social groups.

In many areas where substantial portions of the population had been converted to Protestantism, such as Austria and Bohemia, Jesuit education was one of the means by which these areas were returned to Catholicism by the first part of the 17th century. Jesuit preachers like Peter Canisius (1521–97) began a revival of what had become, by the middle of the 16th century, an almost moribund Catholic Church in Germany.

In Spain, a country where Protestantism had attracted very few followers, the Counter-Reformation was marked by a revival of religious and mystical life. The most prominent figure in this revival was the Carmelite reformer and spiritual writer Teresa of Jesus (or Teresa of Ávila, 1515–82) and John of the Cross (1542–91).

The revival of religious life characterizing the Counter-Reformation went beyond, however, religious orders and the clergy. The application of the Council of Trent affected the religious experience of laypeople in all parts of Catholic Europe.

Circles of “the devout” or “friends of God” had grown up in many places even before the advent of institutional reform. Reforming orders like the Jesuits built on these groups to form organized lay confraternities and sodalities to pursue prayer, education, and charitable works.

Confraternities devoted to the Virgin Mary and especially to the Blessed Sacrament held public processions and reaffirmed Catholic doctrines under attack by Protestants. At the same time, reforming bishops and pastors attempted to suppress quasi-magical devotional practices unapproved by church authority, which in many cases had attracted the criticism of Protestant reformers.

The Counter-Reformation left the Catholic Church more organized and disciplined. In many ways, the changes in the Catholic Church paralleled those introduced by Protestants in the areas under their control. Both created a disciplined and educated clergy and clearer teaching on doctrinal matters and attempted to bring about effective conversion of the mass of the population. Both relied to a greater degree on the cooperation of secular governments.

While many scholars have recognized the contribution of the Counter-Reformation to the strengthening of the Catholic Church, others have suggested that by raising the standards of education of the clergy and attempting to impose a uniform discipline on the laity, the Counter-Reformation alienated many of the uneducated masses and prepared the way for the secularization that began in the 18th century.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert was born on August 29, 1619, in Reims, France. His father was a draper, but Jean-Baptiste was educated in business. At age 20 he began service in the Ministry of War under Michel Le Tellier. In 1651, he became Jules Cardinal Mazarin’s (1602–61) personal financial attendant; it was Mazarin who later recommended Colbert to Louis XIV, king of France (1638–1715).

Colbert became Louis XIV’s comptroller (minister of finance) in 1665 and held that position until 1687. France’s financial system had been plagued by corrupt and weak administration, and funds collected scarcely made their way to the proper authorities. Due to Colbert’s investigations, superintendent of finance Nicolas Fouquet (1615–80) was tried for embezzlement in 1661 and imprisoned for life.

The office of superintendent was abolished, and numerous other officials lost their positions. Colbert restructured French finances, which were thereafter ruled by a council of finance bound to a new set of accounts to keep to the budget.

Colbert reduced interest rates on France’s public debt to free funds for other projects. He made tax collections and distributions so efficient that he reaped a 50 percent tax decrease in costs. Soon, he managed to increase France’s net revenues by 30 million livres.


Colbert also oversaw the corvée, the much despised free labor that peasants owed to their lords. He was a gifted financier and administrator, but he found it exceedingly difficult to control Louis XIV’s extravagant spending, which often brought French to the brink of bankruptcy.

A mercantilist intent on market reforms, Colbert expanded commerce and maintained a positive trade balance. He also pushed for protective tariffs and subsidies and introduced government control over commerce and trade in 1644 with price and quality controls. He declared more than 100 edicts to govern guilds. With an eye toward the world market, he introduced the luxurious silk trade, Venetian glass blowing, and Flemish cloth trades to France.

Colbert initiated massive roadwork projects and had the Canal of Languedoc built to facilitate easier commercial communication. His model factories used specific production standards to ensure quality along with volume. He closely supervised colonization costs by establishing the French East Indian Company and the French West India Company.

In 1669, Colbert became marine minister. He ordered arsenals and harbors to be built including the ports of Rochefort and Brest. He immediately wrote new navigation laws and then instituted the merchant marine and the French navy. To improve the navy’s training and patriotism, he established naval schools and instituted a system of classes for the service to ensure loyalty.

Every seaman would provide six months of service once within a four-year period in which he would receive full pay and then receive half-pay and a pension when these conditions were met. To fill up the ranks, Colbert used condemned criminals, North American Indians, and slaves to serve in the navy.

A patriot of France, Colbert declared new codes to centralize power in the monarchy. These included a civil code in 1667, a criminal code in 1670, a commercial code in 1772, a marine code in 1681, and colonial codes in 1685. Because he believed in the superiority of French art and science, his avid support of these institutions led him personally to found at least four major prestigious French academies.

Although Colbert had dealt with various challenges with the extravagant King Louis XIV, the king’s decision to declare war on the Netherlands in 1672 forced him to change some of his basic policies. For example, he had no choice but to raise funds for the war by increasing taxes, selling office, and borrowing money. Despite Colbert’s track record prior to the war, these unpopular policies created strong dissent.

Moreover, he had never really gained much support within court circles, probably because of the power he wielded. For all his efforts to make improvements at all levels of France, he was not rewarded with the appreciation of his countrymen. Still, most historians consider him a great French statesman. Colbert died on September 6, 1683.

Church of England

The Church of England was the national and reformed church established and amended by parliamentary statutes during the English Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries. Its institutions included Governorship in the Monarchy, Prelateship in the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the threefold episcopal ministry: bishops, priests, and deacons.

Its theological doctrines and liturgies sought to absorb truths from the Bible, the early Christian tradition, and reason, and to comprehend Catholic, humanist, and reformed elements of the time. The Church of England was not a theocracy, because in these two centuries, the legislative authority belonged to “King in Parliament.”

The Church of England was established in 1534 by the parliamentary Act of Supremacy, which recognized Henry VIII (r. 1509–47) as the “only supreme head on earth” of the Church of England, or the Anglican Church.


The Reformation Parliament (1529–36) abrogated papal authority and declared royal supremacy, but made no attempt theologically or liturgically to break with the Catholic past. Rather, the Six Articles enacted by the Parliament of 1539 reiterated Catholic teachings and practices and put a check on the spread of the embryonic Protestantism in England.

The ambiguities left from the reforms were tested after Henry VIII’s death. Under Edward VI (r. 1547–53), antipapal rhetoric increased, the apparatus of worship became simplified, and the Parliament reformed the Church of England to meet Calvinist essentials. Then, Queen Mary I (r. 1553–58) restored Catholicism, persecuted Calvinist heretics, and pushed her Protestant subjects into exile, or confined their worship in rural cells.

Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) undertook the precarious task of reconstructing the Church of England according to Henry VIII’s blueprint and simultaneously finding a satisfactory settlement for the great majority of her subjects.

In 1559, her first Parliament enacted a new Act of Supremacy, which established her, using a slightly softer tone than her father’s, as the “supreme governor” of the Church of England. Despite the political independence from the papal authority, the church remained administratively and judicially the same. The convocations of Canterbury and York survived.

The diocesan hierarchy and administrative systems continued. The church courts, the ecclesiastic laws, and judicial proceedings followed basically medieval precedents and routines. Under the queen, one novel practice was to require Anglican clergy to take an oath of allegiance to the queen, as all her civil servants did.

In 1563, Parliament sanctioned the Thirty-Nine Articles. In 1571, under the queen’s personal instruction, a slightly altered version was approved by the convocation of the Church of England and was printed as an appendix to the Book of Common Prayer, a revision of Thomas Cranmer’s book of the same title issued originally in 1549.

While the Articles and the Book adopted some of the Protestant theological teachings and liturgical regulations (especially in the administration of baptism and Holy Communion) into the Church of England, they held firmly royal supremacy as the church’s foundation and episcopacy as its government.

Canterbury Cathedral

The Book served as the textbook, compelling local people to weekly church attendance and other services in liturgical uniformity and in the English vernacular, which managed to mask the differences between Catholic and Calvinistic followers within the church.

Although the queen’s sincere and meticulous compromise won the people’s broad acceptance, she could not pacify ardent opposition to her settlement. Neither was she able to persuade all her subjects to conform to the national and reformed church required by the Act of Uniformity of 1559.

The Marian bishops and their followers adamantly rejected her breach with Rome and her governorship of the church. After Pope Pius VI issued a bull in 1570 deposing her and absolving her Catholic subjects from allegiance, a series of plots were carried out against her life, including one led by her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1586.

At the same time, radical Calvinists refused to conform to the Church of England because of their resentment of its episcopal structure. To a great extent, the Catholic conspiracies confirmed the Calvinist conviction that the Church of England had to be purified of the accreted institutions, doctrines, and liturgies inherited from medieval Catholicism.

King James Bible

In the 17th century, both the popish plots, real or imagined, and radical movements of the Puritans would test the vitality of the Elizabethan Church of England. At the Hampton Court conference of 1604, the first Stuart king, James I (r. 1603–25), met his Puritan subjects to receive their petition for purifying the Catholic remnants from the Church of England. The king commissioned a panel of 54 to produce an authorized English Bible.

The so-called James I Version was finished in 1611, and the Church of England began to have its own standardized book for centuries to come. However, at the same conference, the king was displeased by the demands of the Puritan nonconformists to reform the episcopacy, and later responded to it with his succinct statement “No bishop, no king.”

Afterward, the Gunpowder Plot by Catholic extremists, aiming at blowing up all of royalty at the opening session of Parliament of 1605, further inflamed anti-Catholic sentiment in England, and helped the Puritan cause to gain growing support from its popular base.

The leading Puritan parliamentarians under King Charles I (r. 1625–49) became infuriated when the king refused to transform the Church of England toward congregational structure, and they linked the episcopal structure of the church to the king’s personal tyranny.

Civil War

Although the Puritans’ frustration alone might not have caused the breakout of the Civil War in 1642, the uncompromising antipapal and antiepiscopal attitude of the Puritan politicians and military men undoubtedly shaped the fate of England and its church in the next 20 years.

After the regicide of 1649, General Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan providentialist and a pragmatic politician, was forced to suppress his fellow Puritan extremists, the levellers and the followers of the fifth monarchism, in order to preserve the episcopal organization in his Puritan-styled Church of England.

During the Restoration (1660–88), endeavors were made among different religious leaders to find a new settlement, but King Charles II (r. 1660–85) and the Anglicans now in power refused to recognize the nonconformists who had been previously ordained to serve in their congregations.

The king expelled about 2,000 of them from the church after they refused to pass the test, defined by the Act of Test of 1673 as taking oaths of allegiance and receiving Holy Communion in the Church of England.

The national church became schismatic, and the specter of the Civil War loomed. When the nation faced a very real possibility of the restoration of Roman Catholicism under James II (r. 1685–88), Parliament met in 1688 to contemplate how to contend with the crisis.

In Parliament, the majority of the Tories supported royal authority, but cared about the future of the Church of England more than King James II; the Whigs favored parliamentary supremacy, but were willing to work with the Tories in order to prevent Catholic resurgence.

After suffering military defeats at the hand of the king’s opponents, James II abandoned the throne and fled to France at the end of 1688. In 1689, Parliament offered the Crown jointly to Mary (r. 1689–94), the Anglican daughter of James I, and her husband, William III (r. 1689–1702), the Calvinist duke of Orange.

In the same year, Parliament required William and Mary to accept the Bill of Rights, which was designed to guarantee the members of Parliament freedom of speech and immunity from prosecution for their opinions presented in parliamentary debates.

In 1689, the Parliament also adopted the Toleration Act, which offered some freedom of worship to the nonconformist Protestants; their right to hold public offices, however, was still technically restricted by the Act of Test of 1673, which would be finally repealed in 1828. But the Catholics did not gain religious freedom until 1829.

Political and religious struggles continued to disrupt the English life from the Glorious Revolution in England to the succession of the first Hanoverian king, George I (r. 1714–27), when the restoration of Catholicism became not only barred by law but also less and less realistic. However, the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 was the great landmark in the history of the Church of England.

In general, the religious strife and bloodshed that had troubled England for more than a century began to subside, and the national and reformed church began to operate within the Elizabethan framework of the church constitution. Moreover, the church spread throughout the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, and hundreds of episcopacies all over the empire lived under the governorship of English monarchs.

Today, the Church of England is still the religion of the English monarchy but no longer enjoys any privileges over other religions in the British parliamentary democracy. The archbishop of Canterbury, as St. Augustine’s successor, is honored as the universal primate among the Episcopalian believers in more than 400 dioceses all around the world, but he exercises no authority over them. At the same time, the church is currently playing an important role in women’s ordination, Christian ecumenical dialogue, and interfaith communications among world religions.

Christian Century in Japan

Christian Century in Japan

Francis Xavier, a founder of the Society of Jesus, arrived in Japan in 1549, inaugurating a century of Catholic Christian missionary activity in that country. After enjoying enormous success, Christians suffered brutal persecution and were almost eliminated a century later.

Japan was ruled by warring feudal lords in the mid-16th century who sought to wrest power from the failing Ashikaga Shogunate. These lords eagerly welcomed the newly arrived Portuguese to their domains in order to purchase European firearms.

Observing the respect the Portuguese merchants showed toward Catholic priests, many Japanese lords converted to the new faith and ordered their subjects to convert also. Some Japanese even mistakenly thought that Christianity was a variant form of Buddhism. Jesuit missionaries came under the protection of the Portuguese Crown and were soon joined by the Franciscans, who came via Spain’s colony the Philippines and were under the protection of Spain.


The southern island of Kyushu as well as the imperial capital Kyoto became centers of Christian missionary activity. Japan became the most successful area of Christian conversion in Asia. By 1582, an estimated 150,000 had become Christians, with the number rising to 300,000 by the century’s end, and 500,000 at its height in 1615.

Japan was ruled by warring feudal lords in the mid-16th century who sought to wrest power from the failing Ashikaga Shogunate. These lords eagerly welcomed the newly arrived Portuguese to their domains in order to purchase European firearms. Observing the respect the Portuguese merchants showed toward Catholic priests, many Japanese lords converted to the new faith and ordered their subjects to convert also.

Some Japanese even mistakenly thought that Christianity was a variant form of Buddhism. Jesuit missionaries came under the protection of the Portuguese Crown and were soon joined by the Franciscans, who came via Spain’s colony the Philippines and were under the protection of Spain.

The southern island of Kyushu as well as the imperial capital Kyoto became centers of Christian missionary activity. Japan became the most successful area of Christian conversion in Asia. By 1582, an estimated 150,000 had become Christians, with the number rising to 300,000 by the century’s end, and 500,000 at its height in 1615.

Christian missionaries were welcomed as allies by Japan’s first aspiring unifier, Oda Nobunaga (1534–82), in his military confrontation with powerful Buddhist sects. Oda destroyed his formidable Buddhist opponents and their castles, but was assassinated. He was followed by Hideyoshi Toyotomi (1536–98), who continued the wars of unification.

Hideyoshi was ambivalent toward Westerners, on the one hand welcoming their trade. He also feared their influence, both the authority of the pope and Spain’s colonial ambitions, which had made the Philippines a colony. Thus he banned all missionary activities in 1587, but did not enforce the law until 1597, when he ordered nine missionaries and 17 Japanese Christians executed.

Hideyoshi died in 1598. Another succession struggle ensued until another nobleman, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616), won a definitive battle in 1603, after which he was confirmed shogun by the emperor, thus inaugurating the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868).

The newly victorious and as yet insecure Tokugawa Ieyasu regarded Christians as potentially subversive and began to move against them in 1606. His son and successor continued his policies, expelling missionaries and ordering noblemen and ordinary people in his domain to renounce Christianity; he went so far as to execute those who remained Christian clandestinely.

The shogunate then forced all lords throughout Japan to conform to anti-Christian laws. Suspected Christians were forced to trample on the cross or other Christian symbols while those who refused were tortured to death.

Persecution climaxed in 1637–38 when oppressed Christian peasants revolted in western Kyushu. They were put down and slaughtered. A law in 1640 compelled all Japanese to register at a local Buddhist temple. Christianity was wiped out in Japan except for a few small underground communities.

The Catholic Church recognized 3,125 Japanese martyrs between 1597 and 1660, several of whom were beatified by Pope John Paul II. The Tokugawa Shogunate enacted other laws that banned trade with Europeans except for two Dutch ships annually and took other measures that almost totally isolated Japan from the Western world until 1854.

Thus between 1549 and 1640, Japan presented the paradoxical picture of success and then total prohibition of the Christian missionary movement.

Charles V (Charles I of Spain)

Charles V (Charles I of Spain)

Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire was the first monarch who was in the position to aspire to universal dominion. From his paternal grandfather, he stood to inherit the paternal domain of today’s Austria and South Tyrol, as well as claims to parts of Switzerland and southwest Germany.

In addition, the Habsburgs had held the elected position of the Holy Roman Emperor (a collection of lands that included today’s Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, northern Italy, Switzerland, the central eastern part of France, and the Low Countries).

Although the constituent lands of the Holy Roman Empire (mostly Germany and adjacent lands) were basically independent, the title held great prestige as it implied a primacy in Western Christendom. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 placed the Western Empire in a position of primacy in Europe.

Charles’s inheritance from his paternal grandmother was also impressive. The House of Burgundy, although an offshoot of France, had amassed a whole series of lands that included the Netherlands and adjacent areas, such as the County of Burgundy (Franche-Comte) and Luxembourg.


At that time, the Netherlands not only included the present-day countries of Holland and Belgium, but also much of northern France and parts of northern Germany. In many ways, it was the wealthiest country in Europe with textile products, crafts, commerce, and precapital financial processing, thereby making it a center of the European economy.

After the death of an older sister, Charles’s mother, Juana of Spain, became the heiress of the fabled Indies. From his grandmother, Isabella, Charles inherited the Crown of Castile, which comprised 60 percent of the Iberian Peninsula.

More importantly, it included the title to the Indies, which turned out to be western South America, most of the present West Indies, Central America, and present-day Mexico, including parts of the present-day Southwest United States.

From his maternal grandfather, he inherited the Crown of Aragon, about one-quarter of Iberia. Significantly, this included claim to Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, together about 40 percent of modern-day Italy. Charles inherited these territories at an early age.

His father died in 1506, and soon thereafter, his mother was declared insane. His maternal grandfather and grandmother, Ferdinand V and Isabella I, passed away in 1515 and 1504, respectively, while his paternal grandfather, Maximilian, passed away in January 1519.

Far-Flung Government

With these vast inheritances came vast responsibilities. All of Charles’s land possessions had separate governments that warranted consideration. Castile had separate governments not only in Granada, which had recently been conquered, but also overseas.

Charles V on horse back

The American possession was so vast that separate viceroyalties had to be set in Peru, New Spain (Mexico), and lesser jurisdictions in Colombia and Santo Domingo. In addition, Castilian claims to territories in North Africa included Ceuta and Melilla. Aragon also had its own separate parliaments, as did Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia.

The Netherlands had 18 separate jurisdictions in addition to Franche-Comte, as did the landgravate of Alsace and the Austrian possessions. While all of these could at least contribute to the exchequer, the Holy Roman Emperor was a title without much power.

Germany also at this time was composed of 300 separate states. To complicate matters further, Charles faced the menace of the Turks under their greatest ruler, Suleiman I the Magnificent, who were advancing into the Balkans.

He forced the Turks back after they invaded Austria in 1531, but much of the Balkans remained under Turkish control. Charles captured Tunis in 1535 and helped drive the Turks out of northern Africa temporarily.

Among Charles’s greatest challenges was France and its monarchs, the Valois. The French, especially under Francis I (1515–47), resented his position in Europe and feared encirclement by Charles and his family, the Habsburgs. The French sought to regain French-speaking sections of the Netherlands and wanted to gain power in Italy with claims to both Milan and Naples.

The result was a series of wars between 1521 and 1559 between the French and Charles and his son, Philip II of Spain. In the end, the Spaniards remained supreme in Italy with Lombardy under their control, in addition to Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia.

The Protestant Reformation, which broke out in the German territory between 1517 and 1521, was another of Charles’s major challenges. The Reformation split Germany and prevented unity against the Turks and the French.

After earlier successes, opposition that appeared in 1552 forced Charles to retreat as some of his allies—both Catholic and Protestant—felt he was too powerful. The resulting Peace of Augsburg froze existing section lines in place between Catholics and Protestants.

In broad terms, Charles’s job was to preserve his inheritance. He tried to maintain his inheritance via marriage alliances and aiding his royal family, although he was not always successful. He tried to gain peace with France through the marriage of his widowed sister Eleanor to Francis I.

On the other hand, he could not help his brother-in-law, Christian II of Denmark, who was deposed. And although he supported his aunt, Catherine, whose husband, Henry VIII, divorced her, he could not stop the divorce.

More successfully, after his sister’s husband, Louis of Hungary, perished at Mohácz in 1526, he arranged a marriage of his brother Ferdinand to Anne of Hungary, which led to the annexation of Czech territories and that part of Hungary not conquered by the Turks. His own marriage to Isabella of Portugal led to the annexation of that country in 1580 when the last male heir of the royal house of Portugal died.

Ultimately Charles realized that his empire, lacking real cultural or administrative unity, could not be sustained. Realizing that his health was failing (he had gout and dropsy), he handed over his Spanish, Italian, and Netherlands possessions to his son, Philip II, in October 1556, and his Austrian lands and Holy Roman Emperor title to his brother Ferdinand I. He died two years later. Although not a brilliant ruler, Charles accomplished his goal of maintaining his empire so as to pass it on to his heirs.