The beginning of the Reformation. First religious wars in Europe

Under the name of the Reformation, a large opposition movement is known against the medieval system of life, which swept Western Europe at the beginning of the modern era and expressed itself in the desire for radical transformations mainly in the religious sphere, which resulted in the emergence of a new doctrine - Protestantism - in both of its forms: Lutheran and Reformed . Since medieval Catholicism was not only a doctrine, but also a whole system that dominated all manifestations of the historical life of Western European peoples, the era of the Reformation was accompanied by movements in favor of reforming and other aspects of social life: political, social, economic, intellectual. Therefore, the reformation movement, which embraced the entire 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, was a very complex phenomenon and was conditioned both by reasons common to all countries and by the special historical conditions of each people individually. All these reasons were combined in each country in the most varied ways.

John Calvin, founder of the Calvinist Reformation

The unrest stirred up in the era of the Reformation ended on the continent with a religious and political struggle, known as the Thirty Years War, which ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648). The religious reform legalized by this world did not differ in its original character. When confronted with reality, the followers of the new teaching fell more and more into contradictions, openly breaking with the original reform slogans of freedom of conscience and secular culture. Dissatisfaction with the results of the religious reform, which degenerated into its opposite, gave rise to a special trend in the Reformation - numerous sectarianism (Anabaptists, independents, levellers and others), striving to resolve mainly social issues on religious grounds.

The leader of the German Anabaptists Thomas Munzer

The era of the Reformation gave all aspects of European life a new, different from the medieval direction, and laid the foundations of the modern system of Western civilization. A correct assessment of the results of the era of the Reformation is possible only taking into account not only its initial verbal"Freedom-loving" slogans, but also the shortcomings of her approved on practice new Protestant social and church system. The Reformation destroyed the religious unity of Western Europe, created several new influential churches and changed - far from always for the better for the people - the political and social order of the countries it affected. Secularization in the era of the Reformation of church property quite often led to their plundering by powerful aristocrats, who enslaved the peasantry more strongly than before, and in England they often and massively drove it out of the land by enclosures ... The destroyed authority of the pope was replaced by an obsessed spiritual intolerance of Calvinist and Lutheran theorists. In the XVI-XVII and even in subsequent centuries, its narrow-mindedness far surpassed the so-called "medieval fanaticism." In most Catholic states of this time, there was permanent or temporary (often very wide) tolerance for the supporters of the Reformation, but it was not for Catholics in almost any Protestant country. The violent extermination of the objects of Catholic "idolatry" by the reformers led to the death of many of the largest works of religious art and the most valuable monastery libraries. The era of the Reformation was accompanied by a major economic upheaval. The old Christian religious principle "production for man" was replaced by another, in fact, atheistic - "man for production." Personality has lost its former self-sufficient value. The figures of the Reformation era (especially the Calvinists) saw in it just a cog in a grandiose mechanism that worked for enrichment with such energy and non-stop that material benefits did not at all compensate for the mental and spiritual losses arising from this.

Literature on the Reformation

Hagen. Literary and Religious Conditions in Germany during the Reformation

Ranke. History of Germany in the era of the Reformation

Egelhaf. History of Germany in the era of the Reformation

Heusser. Reformation history

V. Mikhailovsky. On the forerunners and predecessors of the Reformation in the XIII and XIV centuries

Fisher. Reformation

Sokolov. Reformation in England

Maurenbrecher. England during the Reformation

Luchitsky. Feudal aristocracy and Calvinists in France

Erbcam. History of Protestant sects during the Reformation

Reformation, one of the largest events in world history, whose name denotes a whole period of modern times, covering the 16th and first half of the 17th century ("reformation period" -). Although very often this event is more definitely called a religious (or church) reformation, in reality it had a much broader meaning, being an important moment in both the religious and political, cultural and social history of Western Europe.

The very term reformation, which in the XVI century. began to denote almost exclusively the church transformations that were taking place at that time, initially, in the century, was applied in general to all kinds of state and social transformations; For example, in Germany, before the start of the reformation movement, projects of such transformations were in great progress, bearing the names "Sigismund's Reformation", "Frederick III's Reformation", etc.

Starting the history of the Reformation from the 16th century, we make a certain mistake: the religious movements, the totality of which constitutes the Reformation, arose even earlier. Already the reformers of the 16th century. they realized that they had predecessors who strove for the same thing as they did, and now there is a whole literature dedicated to the predecessors of the Reformation. Separate the reformers of the 16th century. from their predecessors it is possible only from a purely conventional point of view, because both of them play exactly the same role in the history of the age-old struggle with the Catholic Church in the name of purer religious principles. Since protests against the corruption of the Catholic Church began, reformers have emerged. All the difference was in the greater or lesser success of their preaching. To the reformers of the 16th century. managed to tear away entire nations from Rome, which their predecessors could not achieve.

Both in the era of the Reformation and in the previous period, the Reformation idea itself developed in three main directions.

One can be called a Catholic trend, since it sought to reform the church, adhering more or less firmly to church tradition. This trend, which originated at the end of the XIV century, in the century prompted an attempt to reform "the church in the head and the members" through councils (see Gallicanism), convened in the first half of the century. in Pisa, Constanta and Basel. The idea of ​​reforming the church through councils did not die even after the failure of these attempts. With the beginning of the Reformation, it revived, and in the middle of the XVI century. the Council of Tridentum was convened for reform (see).

Another direction, based not on Holy Tradition, but mainly on Holy Scripture, can be called biblical or evangelical. In the pre-Reformation era, such phenomena as the Waldensian sect, formed in the 12th century, belong to it. in the south of France, Wyclif's preaching in England in the XIV century, Czech Hussism at the end of the XIV and the first half of the century, as well as individual predecessors of the Reformation, such as Wesel, Wessel, Goch, etc. In the XVI century. in addition to the biblical or evangelical direction belongs orthodox Protestantism, that is, the teachings of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and less significant reformers, who cited Holy Scripture as the basis of the reform.

The third trend is mystical (and partly rationalistic) sectarianism, which, on the one hand, more decisively than Protestantism broke the connection with Holy Tradition and often, in addition to external revelation given in Holy Scripture, believed in internal revelation (or in general in a new revelation), on the other hand, it was connected with social aspirations and almost never formed into large churches. This direction includes, for example, in the XIII century. the preaching of the "eternal gospel", many mystical teachings of the Middle Ages, as well as some sects of that time (see Sectarianism). In the Reformation era, the mystical trend was represented by the Anabaptists or Christians, Independents, Quakers, and from the mystical sectarianism of this era, rationalistic sectarianism, Antitrinitarianism and Christian deism, emerged.

Thus, in the reformation movement of the 16th and 17th centuries. we distinguish three directions, of which each has its own antecedents at the end of the Middle Ages. This allows us, in spite of the purely Protestant historians of the Reformation, who associate it exclusively with the biblical direction, to speak, on the one hand, about the Catholic Reformation (this term is already used in science), and on the other, about the sectarian Reformation. If the Catholic reformation was a reaction against Protestantism and sectarianism, in which the spirit of the reformation was most sharply manifested, then the Protestant reformation was also accompanied by a reaction against the sectarian reformation.

Reformation and humanism

Medieval Catholicism no longer satisfied the spiritual needs of many individuals and even large or smaller groups of society, who, often without noticing it, aspired to new forms of religious life. The internal decline of Catholicism (the so-called "corruption of the church") was in complete contradiction with the more developed religious consciousness and its moral and intellectual needs. The era that immediately preceded the Reformation is unusually rich in works of accusatory and satirical literature, in which the main subject of indignation and ridicule was the corrupted morals and ignorance of the clergy and monks. The papacy, which dropped itself in public opinion in the XIV and centuries. the debauchery of the Avignon court and the scandalous revelations of the times of the great schism, also became the subject of attacks in literature. Many works of journalism of that time, directed against the Catholic clergy, received historical fame ("Praise of the folly" of Erasmus, "Letters of dark people", etc.). The most developed contemporaries were also outraged by the superstition and abuse of religion rooted in the Roman Church: exaggerated ideas about papal authority ("the Pope is not only a common man, but also God"), indulgences, pagan features in the cult of the Virgin Mary and the saints, excessive development of rituals due to the inner content of religion, piae fraudes ("pious deceptions"), etc. The conciliar reform of the church concerned only its organization and moral discipline; Protestantism and sectarianism also affected the doctrine itself, with the entire ritual side of religions.

The reasons for dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church lay, however, not only in its corruption. The era immediately preceding the reformation was the time of the final formation of Western European nationalities and the emergence of national literatures. Roman Catholicism denied the national principle in church life, but it made itself felt more and more. In the era of the great schism, the nations were divided between the Roman and Avignon popes, and the idea of ​​cathedral reform was closely connected with the idea of ​​the independence of national churches. At the Council of Constance, votes were cast among nations, the interests of which the papacy then skillfully separated by the conclusion of concordats with individual nations. Nationalities, especially those exploited by the Curia, were especially unhappy with Rome - (Germany, England). The idea of ​​national independence was also in vogue among the clergy, who did not at all think about falling away from Rome (Gallicanism in France, "people's church" in Poland in the 16th century). The desire to read the Holy Scriptures and perform divine services in their native language also played a role in the national opposition to Rome. Hence the deeply national character of the 16th century reformation.

The state authorities took advantage of national aspirations, too, burdened by the tutelage of the church and wishing for an independent existence. The question of reforming the church gave rise to the sovereigns to interfere in church affairs and expand their power in the spiritual sphere. Wyclif and at one time Huss enjoyed the patronage of the secular authorities. Cathedrals of the first half of c. could be realized only thanks to the insistence of the sovereigns. The reformers themselves of the 16th century. appeal to the secular authorities, inviting them to take the reform business into their own hands. The political opposition against the church was based on social opposition, on the dissatisfaction of the secular estates with the privileged position of the clergy. The nobility looked with envy at the power and wealth of the clergy and were not against the secularization of church property, hoping to enrich themselves at its expense, as it happened in the era of the Reformation. In addition, it often protested against the broad competence of church courts, against the severity of tithes, etc. The townspeople also had constant clashes with the clergy on legal and economic grounds. Most dissatisfied were the peasants, over whom the power of bishops, abbots, chapters, who owned inhabited estates and serfs, gravitated. Both aristocratic and democratic opposition against the clergy played a prominent role in the birth of the reformation movement in different countries. From a principled point of view, all this opposition, not in the name of the divine, but in the name of the human principles of an original nationality, an independent state and an independent society, could justify itself in various ways.

Reformation in Germany

Reformation in Switzerland

R. in German Switzerland began simultaneously with R. in Germany. Here the teaching of Zwingli arose, which spread to western Germany, but did not receive the same significance there that fell to the lot of the Augsburg confession. There was a big difference between the two R., in comparison with Luther, the theologian and mystic, Zwingli was more of a humanist and rationalist, and the Swiss cantons, in contrast to most of the German lands, were republics. On the other hand, in both countries the religious issue was decided in one direction or the other by each principality, each canton separately. In parallel with the matter of church reform and under its banner, purely political and social issues were being resolved in Switzerland. The Swiss Union, which arose at the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century, took shape gradually; the original cantons (Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden), and after them those who were the oldest members of the union (Zug, Bern, Lucerne, Glarus), enjoyed some privileges in it compared to those who joined later. Among these, placed in less favorable conditions, the cantons belonged, by the way, to Zurich. The political inequality of the individual parts of the Swiss Union caused mutual displeasure. Another sore spot in Swiss life was mercenarism; it brought demoralization to both the ruling classes and the masses of the people. The patrician, in whose hands was the power, used the pensions and gifts of sovereigns seeking an alliance with Switzerland, and traded in the blood of his fellow citizens. Often because of this, he was divided into hostile parties, due to the intrigues of foreign governments. On the other hand, in the mercenaries who went to serve foreign sovereigns, a disregard for work, a passion for easy money, an inclination to robbery developed. Finally, there was no guarantee against Swiss mercenaries from happening to fight in hostile armies. The ecclesiastical and political reforms united in Switzerland in this way: social elements that wanted changes, namely the younger cantons and the democratic classes of the population, took the side of both, while the old cantons (Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, Zug, Lucerne, with Freiburg and Wallis) and the patrician oligarchies took up arms to defend the old church and the old political order. Zwingli immediately acted in the role of both the church and the state reformer, he found it extremely unjust the state of affairs in which the old cantons, small and ignorant, in the general Diet had the same importance as large, powerful and educated cities; at the same time he preached against mercenarism (see. Zwingli). The Zwingli reform was adopted by Zurich, and from there spread to other cantons: Bern (1528), Basel, St. Gallen, Schaffhausen (1529). In the Catholic cantons, the persecution of the Zwinglians began, in the Evangelical cantons the resistance of the Catholics was suppressed. Both sides sought allies abroad: in 1529 the old cantons entered into an alliance with the Habsburgs and with the dukes of Lorraine and Savoy, the reformed ones - with some imperial cities of Germany and with Philip of Hesse. This was the first example of an international treaty based on confessional relations. Zwingli and Philip of Hesse had an even broader plan - to form a coalition against Charles V, which would also include France and Venice. Zwingli saw the inevitability of an armed struggle and said that one should beat if one did not want to be beaten. In 1529, a land peace was concluded between the hostile parties (in Kappel). "Since the word of God and faith are not such things to which one can be forced", the religious question was left to the free discretion of the individual cantons; in the possessions under the general government of the Union, each community by a majority vote had to decide the question of its religion; Reformed preaching in the Catholic cantons was not allowed. In 1531, an internecine war broke out in Switzerland: the Zurichs were defeated at Kappel, and Zwingli himself fell in this battle. Under the treaty of 1529, the Catholic cantons were forced to abandon foreign alliances and pay military costs; now the reformed had to submit to this condition, but the decree on the faith retained its force. Zwingli did not have time to give his reform a completely finished look. In general, the Zwinglian R. took on a more radical character than the R. Lutheran. Zwingli destroyed everything that was not based on Holy Scripture; Luther preserved everything that did not directly contradict Scripture. This was expressed, for example, in the cult, which in Zwinglianism is much simpler than in Lutheranism. Much freer than Luther, Zwingli also interpreted Holy Scripture, applying the methods that were in use in humanistic science and recognizing broader rights for the human mind. The Zwinglianism was based on the principle of communal self-government, in contrast to the Lutheran Church, which submitted to the princely consistories and chancelleries. Zwingli's aim was to bring back to life the primitive forms of the Christian community; for him, the church is a society of believers that does not have a special spiritual leadership. The rights that belonged to the pope and the hierarchy in Catholicism were transferred from Zwingli not to princes, as in Luther's, but to the entire community; he even gives her the right to displace secular (elective) power, if the latter demands something contrary to God. In 1528, Zwingli established a synod, in the form of periodic meetings of the clergy, to which deputies from parishes or communities were also admitted, with the right to complain about the teachings or behavior of their pastors. The synod also resolved various issues of church life, tested and appointed new preachers, etc. Such an institution was established in other Evangelical cities. Allied evangelical congresses were also formed, since little by little it became a custom to resolve general issues by conferences of the best theologians and preachers. This synodal-representative government was different from the constitutional-bureaucratic one that was established in the Lutheran principalities of Germany. However, even in Zwinglianism, secular power, represented by city councils, received virtually broad rights in religious matters, and religious freedom was recognized not for an individual, but for an entire community. It can be said that the Zwinglian R. transferred to the republican state the same rights over the individual that Lutheranism transferred to the monarchist state. The Zurich authorities, for example, not only introduced the Zwinglian doctrine and worship, but also forbade preaching against the points they had adopted; they armed themselves against the Anabaptist preaching and became exiles, imprisonment and even executions to persecute sectarians. Swiss R. developed further in Geneva, where Protestantism penetrated from the German cantons and where it provoked an entire political revolution (see Geneva). In 1536-38 and 1541-64. Calvin lived in Geneva (see), who gave a new organization to the local church and made Geneva the main stronghold of Protestantism. Hence Calvinism (see) spread to many countries.

Reformation in Prussia and Livonia

Outside Germany and Switzerland, R. was first adopted by the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order (see), Albrecht of Brandenburg (see), who in 1525 secularized the Order's possessions, turning them into a secular Duchy of Prussia (see), and introducing the Lutheran R. From Prussia R. penetrated into Livonia (see).

Reformation in the Scandinavian countries

In the 20s of the sixteenth century. Lutheranism began to establish itself in Denmark (see) and Sweden. Both here and there R. was combined with political upheavals. The Danish king Christian II, under whose rule all the Scandinavian states were united, looked with extreme displeasure at the independence and power of the Danish church and planned to use R. in the interests of royal power. Being related to the Saxon Elector and finding sympathy in a circle of people who took Luther's side, he sent the rector of one of the Copenhagen schools to Wittenberg, with the task of choosing preachers for Denmark. Shortly thereafter, Lutheran preachers arrived in Copenhagen and began to spread the new teaching. Christian II issued a decree forbidding attention to the papal bull against Luther (1520), and even invited Karlstadt to Copenhagen. When an uprising took place in Denmark and Christian was deprived of power, elected to his place (1523), under the name of Frederick I, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, pledged not to allow Lutheran preaching in the churches; but already in 1526 the new king aroused the displeasure of the clergy against himself by non-observance of the posts and by the marriage of his daughter to the Duke of Prussia, who had just changed his faith and secularized the possessions of the Teutonic Order. At the Diet in Odense (1526-27), Frederick I suggested that the clergy receive confirmation in the clergy and the award of prelatures not from the Pope, but from the Archbishop of Denmark, and to contribute to the state treasury money that had previously been exiled to the Roman curia; the nobility added to this the requirement not to give land further on bail or for use to churches and monasteries. The bishops, for their part, expressed a desire to be given the right to punish those who deviated from Catholic doctrines. The king did not agree to this, stating that "faith is free" and that one cannot "force anyone to believe in one way or another." Soon thereafter, Frederick I began to appoint persons he liked to episcopal positions. In 1529 Protestantism took root in the capital itself. Frederick I was able to take advantage of the mood of the parties to become the master of the situation. He began to give monasteries into fiefs to the nobles, forcibly expelling monks from them, but at the same time did not give much will to new preachers, fearing the mood of the lower classes of the population, which continued to gravitate towards Christian II. This was how the complete introduction of R. in Denmark was prepared, which took place after the death of Frederick I. In Sweden, Gustav Vasa was enthroned by the popular movement, when among the Swedes already appeared their preachers of Lutheranism - Olay and Lawrence Petersen and Lawrence Anderson. Gustav Vasa, who thought about the secularization of church lands, began to provide patronage to the Lutherans, began, in addition to the pope, to appoint bishops and instructed the Swedish reformers to translate the Bible. In 1527, he convened a Sejm in Westeros, with representatives of the urban and peasant classes, and demanded, first of all, an increase in the funds of the state treasury. Faced with opposition, he announced that he was abdicating the throne. Feuds broke out between the estates; they ended up agreeing to the innovations demanded by the king, sacrificing the clergy to him. The bishops were charged with the duty of helping the king with money and transferring his castles and fortresses to him; at the disposal of the king was given all the church property that remained for the remuneration of clergy; A royal official was placed over the monasteries, who was supposed to take away the surplus income from their estates to the treasury and determine the number of monastics. For their assistance, the nobles were rewarded with church and monastery fiefs, which left them after 1454. At first, the king was content with part of the income from church lands, but then he imposed heavier fees on them, beginning, at the same time, to appoint priests in addition to bishops and forbidding the latter ( 1533) to carry out any reforms in the church without his consent. In conclusion, he introduced a new system of church organization in Sweden, establishing (1539) the office of royal resident and superintendent, with the right to appoint and replace clergy and audit church institutions, not excluding bishops (the office of bishops was retained, but their power was limited by consistories; bishops remained members of the Diet). R. was introduced in Sweden by peaceful means, and no one was executed for their faith; even very rarely were they removed from office. When, however, heavy taxes aroused discontent among the people, some clergy and nobles took advantage of this to raise a rebellion, but it was soon suppressed. Lutheranism also spread from Sweden to Finland.

Reformation in England

The king of England soon followed in the footsteps of the kings of Denmark and Sweden. Already at the end of the Middle Ages, there was in England a strong national, political and social opposition against the Church, manifested in parliament, but restrained by the government, which tried to live in peace with Rome. In some circles it has been happening since the XIV century. and religious fermentation (see Lollards). Were in England at the very beginning of the 16th century. and R.'s real predecessors (for example, Colet; see). When R. began in Germany and Sweden, Henry VIII reigned in England, who at first was extremely hostile to the new "heresy"; but a quarrel with the Pope because of a divorce from his wife pushed him on the path of R. (see Henry VII I). However, under Henry VIII, the rejection of England from Rome was not accompanied by any clear idea of ​​the R. Church: there was no person in the country who could play the role of Luther, Zwingli or Calvin. The people who helped Henry VIII in his ecclesiastical policy - Thomas Cromwell and Cranmer, the first as chancellor, the second as archbishop of Canterbury - were deprived of a creative idea and did not have a circle of people around them that clearly understood the goals and means of religious reform. The king himself at first thought only about limiting the papal power in legal and financial terms. The first attempts in this sense were made in 1529-1530, when a parliamentary statute prohibited clergy from acquiring papal dispensations and licenses for the union of several beneficiaries and residence outside the place of their ministry. The annates were soon destroyed and it was announced that in the event of a papal interdict no one had the right to enforce it. Parliament, in 1532-33, determined that England is an independent kingdom, the king is its supreme head in secular affairs, and for religious affairs it needs its own clergy. Parliament in the 25th year of the reign of Henry VIII decreed that the opposing pope should not be considered a heretic, canceled appeals to the pope and destroyed all his influence on the appointment of archbishops and bishops in England. Asked (1534) on this issue, the Oxford and Cambridge universities answered that according to the Holy Scriptures the Roman bishop does not have any special power in England. The ecclesiastical assemblies of the districts of Canterbury and York have drawn up ordinances in the same sense; similar statements were made by individual bishops, chapters, deans, prior, etc. In 1536, Parliament expressly prohibited, on pain of punishment, the defense of papal jurisdiction in England. Instead of a prayer for the Pope, a petition was introduced: "ab episcopi romani tyrannide libera nos, Domine!" On the other hand, as early as 1531, Henry VIII demanded that the clergy be recognized as "the only patron and supreme head of the church and clergy in England." The convocation of the Canterbury district was embarrassed by such a demand and only after long hesitation agreed to recognize the king as protector, lord and even, as far as the law of Christ allows, the head of the church. With the last reservation, the York convocation adopted a new royal title, which at first declared that in secular affairs the king was already the head, but in spiritual supremacy it was contrary to the Catholic faith. In 1534, Parliament, by an act of supremacy, declared that the king is the only sovereign head of the Church of England and should enjoy all the titles, honors, dignities, privileges, jurisdiction and income inherent in this title; he is given the right and authority to visit, reform, correct, tame and suppress error, heresy, abuse and disorder. Thus, in England, R. began with a schism; at first, except for the change in the head of the church, everything else - dogmas, rituals, church structure - continued to remain Catholic. Soon, however, the opportunity arose before the king, the recognized head of the church, to reform the religion and secularize the monastic property. The latter made a revolution in land and social relations in England. A significant part of the confiscated estates were distributed by the king to the new nobility, this created a whole class of influential defenders of church change. Archbishop Cranmer, who sympathized with Lutheranism, wanted to make appropriate changes in the Church of England, but neither the king nor the higher clergy showed any inclination to do so. During the reign of Henry VIII, four orders were issued about what his subjects should believe: these were first of all "ten articles" in 1536, then "The Christian's Instruction", or the episcopal book of the same year, then "six articles" in 1539 . and, finally, "The Necessary Doctrine and Instruction of a Christian" or the royal book of 1544. For all his gravitation towards Catholic dogmas and rituals, Henry VIII was not, however, constant in his decisions: he was then under the influence of opponents of the papacy (Cromwell, Cranmer), then under the influence of secret papists (Bishop Gardiner of Winchester, Cardinal Paul), and his views changed accordingly, always finding the support of an obedient parliament. In general, until the fall of Cromwell (executed in 1540), royal policy was more anti-Catholic, but the "six articles" leaned strongly towards Catholic concepts and institutions, even sanctioning monastic vows after the destruction of monasteries. The "six articles" were introduced with such brutality that they were nicknamed "bloody". Both papists and real Protestants were persecuted in the same way. Under Henry VIII's successor, Edward VI, the Anglican Church was finally established, hitherto existing, with slight changes, in the form that it received around 1550. The king's rule was retained, but the "six articles" were canceled and replaced by new "articles of faith" (1552), to which should be added the "general service book" approved by the parliament. The dogmatic teaching of the Anglican Church was brought closer by Cranmer to the Lutheran one, but under Queen Elizabeth, changes were made in it in the Calvinistic sense. In general, the Church of England bears the traces of a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism. During the short (1553-1558) reign of Mary the Bloody, an attempt was made to restore Catholicism, accompanied by a new religious terror. Her sister Elizabeth rebuilt her father and brother's church. In her reign, puritanism began to develop (see), from which sectarianism (future independents) began to stand out already in the eighties. Thus, in England, along with the royal R., a popular R. took place. The Anglican Church, during the creation of which by Henry VIII and Edward VI, as well as during its restoration by Elizabeth, the first role was played by motives of a non-religious nature, under certain conditions it could become national, that is, find support among the people, could establish itself in his life as a state church ; but it was not "purified" enough to satisfy true Protestants, not so imbued with inner religiosity as to act on the mind and feeling of the individual. It was created to meet the well-known needs of the state, rather than to satisfy the spiritual needs of the individual. Meanwhile, England in the end was also hurt by the religious movement of the century. Those who were no longer satisfied with Catholicism had to choose between Anglicanism and Puritanism, between a church based on well-known interests, conveniences, benefits, and ulterior motives, and a church that, with extraordinary consistency, developed in its teaching and implemented the word in its structure. God, as the reformers of the 16th century understood him. Politically, Anglican R., owing its origin to the crown, acquired the significance of a factor that strengthened royal power. In addition to the fact that the king became the head of the church, R. weakened the political power of the clergy by removing from the upper house of the abbots who stood at the head of the monasteries, and the distribution of secularized estates to the secular aristocracy for a time and made it more dependent on the king (for the economic consequences of secularization, see under this word). In Puritanism, on the contrary, the freedom-loving spirit of Calvinism developed, which fought in neighboring Scotland and on the mainland with royal absolutism. A decisive clash between the Episcopal Church and Puritanism occurred in England in the 17th century, during the Stuarts' struggle with parliaments. The history of the English Revolution is closely linked with the history of the English R.

All the R. considered, except for the Swiss, had a monarchical character. In the second half of the XVI century. Calvinism enters the scene, defeating the Catholic Church in Scotland and the Netherlands, taking on a revolutionary character.

Reformation in Scotland

Royal power in the Middle Ages was weak here: the feudal aristocracy was distinguished by a special spirit of independence, and the common people were also imbued with a sense of freedom. The Stuart dynasty that reigned here was in constant struggle with their subjects. The Scottish revolutions of the Reformation period were only a continuation of earlier uprisings; but with the establishment of Calvinism, the struggle of the Scots against royal power acquired the religious character of a war between the chosen people of God and idolatrous sovereigns and was accompanied by the assimilation of the political ideas of Calvinism. In 1542, King James V of Scotland died, leaving behind his newly born daughter Mary. Her mother Maria, from the famous French family of Guizov, became the regent of the state. Even during the life of James V, the Reformation doctrine began to penetrate into Scotland from Germany and England, but his followers at the same time began to be persecuted and executed. Many of them left their homeland; including the historian and poet George Buckenan (see) and professor of theology Knox (see). When, during the regency of Mary of Guise, Scotland was at war with England, the government called for the help of the French army, and after repelling the English invasion, it kept it in the country for domestic policy purposes. It was during these years that Knox appeared on the stage. Returning from Geneva in 1555, Knox found in Scotland many followers of R. both among the nobility and among the people. He began to preach a new teaching and organize his supporters for the common church life and for the struggle that lay ahead of them. At the end of 1557, several Protestant nobles (including the queen's side brother, later Earl of Murray) concluded a "covenant" among themselves, pledging to renounce "the host of the Antichrist with his vile superstition and idolatry" in order to establish an evangelical community of Jesus Christ. They combined a religious motive with a political one - the dissatisfaction of the regent, who, through the marriage of her daughter to the French Dauphin, seemed to want to merge Scotland and France into one and, following French policy, began to oppress Protestants again. The masses began to join this union; The "lords of the congregation", as the initiators of the movement were called, demanded from the ruler and parliament the restoration of the "divine form of the original church", worship in the native language in the Anglican "common service book" and the selection of priests by parishes, bishops - by the nobility. Parliament did not agree to this; The regent, who was busy with the elevation of her daughter to the English throne, united with supporters of the Catholic reaction on the continent to suppress heresy in Scotland. This led the Scottish Protestants to seek help from Elizabeth (1559); a stormy folk religion began in the country, with an iconoclastic character, with the destruction and plundering of monasteries. Against the "Congregation of Christ" the ruler put up military force. There was civil strife in which France intervened; the queen of England, for her part, helped the Covenanters, who were joined by some Scottish Catholics, fearing French domination. "The Lords and Communities of the Scottish Church" decided to take power from the Regent; Knox compiled a memoir in which he argued with quotations from the Old Testament that dethroning idolatrous rulers is a matter pleasing to the Lord. A provisional government was formed; one of its members was Knox. In 1560, the warring parties were reconciled: under the Edinburgh Treaty, French troops were withdrawn from Scotland; Parliament (or, rather, the convention), which consisted of the overwhelming majority of R.'s supporters, introduced Calvinism in Scotland and secularized church property, distributing most of the confiscated land among the nobles. The Scottish Church, called Presbyterian, borrowed from Geneva the harsh regime of Calvinism and placed the clergy very highly who ruled over it in their synods. Due to the participation in the Scottish Reformation movement of the nobility, the republican organization of the Scottish Church was distinguished by an aristocratic character. See Calvinism, Presbyterians, Mary Stuart.

Reformation in the Netherlands

R. penetrated into the Netherlands in the first half of the 16th century. from Germany, but Charles V, who strictly observed the Edict of Worms here, suppressed the incipient Lutheran movement with the most brutal measures. In the fifties and sixties, Calvinism began to spread rapidly in the Netherlands (see), at the same time as the political opposition against the despotism of Philip II of Spain began. Little by little, the Dutch R. turned into the Dutch revolution (see), which ended with the founding of the Dutch republic (see).

Reformation in France

Protestantism appeared in France in the first half of the 16th century, but the real reformation movement began only in the fifties, and the French Protestants were Calvinists and were called Huguenots. The peculiarity of the French reform movement in social and political terms was that it covered mainly the nobility and to some extent the townspeople. Here, too, the religious struggle assumed the character of a struggle against royal absolutism. It was a kind of feudal and municipal reaction, combined with an attempt to limit the royal power to the general states. In 1516, according to the Bologna concordat (see), the pope ceded to the French king the right to appoint to all the highest ecclesiastical positions in the state, thereby subordinating the French Church to royal power. When R. in other countries discovered its connection with popular movements, Francis I armed himself against R., finding that she was dangerous in the political sense and "serves not so much the edification of souls, as the upheaval of states." Both under him and under his son Henry II, Protestants were severely persecuted, but their number grew. In 1555 there was only one properly organized Calvinist community in France, and in 1559 there were already about 2 thousand of them, and the Protestants gathered their first synod (secret) in Paris. After the death of Henry II, with weak and incapable successors, the royal power fell into decay, which was used by the feudal and municipal elements to declare their claims, combined with the ideas of Calvinism. But R. in France did not succeed in winning a victory over Catholicism, and the royal power eventually emerged victorious from the political struggle. It is remarkable that Protestantism here was of an aristocratic character, and the extreme democratic movement went under the banner of reactionary Catholicism.

Reformation in Poland and Lithuania

In the Polish-Lithuanian state, R. also ended in failure. She found sympathy only in the most prosperous and educated part of the gentry, and in cities with a German population. A struggle arose between the gentry and the clergy over influence in the state, as well as over church courts and tithes - a struggle that was especially strong in the Seimas of the middle of the 16th century, when the gentry elected mostly Protestant ambassadors. This gave a temporary success to Protestantism, which was also favored by the indifference of the clergy, who dreamed of a national church, with their cathedrals and the vernacular in worship, but zealously defended their privileges. The forces of the Polish Protestants were, however, divided. Lutheranism spread in the cities, the Greater Poland gentry gravitated towards the confession of Czech brothers (Hussism), and the Lesser Poland began to accept Calvinism; but in the midst of the Lesser Poland church of the Helvetic confession (see) in the sixties, an anti-Trinitarian schism began. The royal power under Sigismund I severely persecuted the novices; Sigismund II Augustus was tolerant of them, and more than once attempts were made to push him on the path of Henry VIII. The Polish gentry did not sympathize with Lutheranism for its German origins and its monarchical character; Calvinism, with its aristocratic-republican character and the admission of a secular element into church government, in the person of the elders (seniors), was much more suited to her aspirations. Calvin entered into correspondence with the Poles, among whom in the mid-fifties even the idea of ​​inviting him to Poland arose. As the organizer of the church in Poland, the Poles invited their compatriot, the Calvinist Jan Laski (see). The noble character of Polish R. is also evident from the fact that the Polish Protestants derived the right to religious freedom from their gentry liberties; Reforming the churches on their estates, the landlords forced the peasants to give them tithes, which had previously been paid to the Catholic clergy, and demanded that their subjects attend Protestant services. Rationalist sectarianism in Poland also had an aristocratic character (see. Socialism). Polish R. reached its greatest strength in the fifties and sixties of the 16th century, and from the seventies the Catholic reaction began. In Lithuania, R. had the same fate (on Protestantism in northwestern Russia, see the corresponding article).

Reformation in the Czech Republic and Hungary

At the very beginning of the Roman era, both of these states came under the rule of the Habsburg dynasty, in whose possession, under the two closest successors of Charles V, Protestantism spread almost unhindered. By the time of the accession to the throne of Rudolf II (1576), almost all the nobility and almost all the cities of Lower and Upper Austria professed the Protestant faith; there were many Protestants in Styria, Carinthia, Extreme. Hussite was especially strong in Bohemia (see Utrakvism), and in Hungary - Lutheranism among the German colonists (and partly among the Slavs) and Calvinism among the Magyars, as a result of which it was called here the "Magyar faith". In both countries, Protestantism received a purely political organization. In Bohemia, by virtue of the "letter of majesty" (1609), Protestants had the right to choose 24 defensors for themselves, call their representatives, maintain an army and impose taxes for its maintenance. Rudolph II gave this letter to the Czechs in order to keep them behind him when the rest of his subjects were abandoned by him: in the Habsburg possessions, as in other states, there was then a struggle between the zemstvo officials and royal absolutism. Soon after, the mutual relations between the estates and the king escalated, and an uprising took place in Bohemia, which was the beginning of the Thirty Years War (see), during which the Czechs lost political freedom and underwent a terrible Catholic reaction. The fate of Protestantism in Hungary was more favorable; he was not suppressed as in the Czech Republic, although the Hungarian Protestants had to endure severe persecutions on several occasions (see).

Reformation in Italy and Spain (with Portugal).

In the southern Romanesque countries there were only sporadic departures from the Catholic Church, and R. did not receive political significance. In the thirties, among the cardinals there were people (Contarini, Sadolet) who thought about reforming the church and corresponded with Melanchthon; even in the curia there was a party seeking reconciliation with the Protestants; in 1538 a special commission was appointed to reform the church. Published in 1540, Del Beneficio del Cristo was composed in a Protestant spirit. This movement was suppressed by a reaction that began in the forties. In Spain, the connection with Germany, established as a result of the election of Charles V as emperor, contributed to the dissemination of Luther's writings. In the middle of the XVI century. there were secret Protestant communities in Seville, Valladolid and some other places. In 1558, the authorities accidentally opened one of these Protestant communities. The Inquisition immediately made a mass of arrests, and Charles V, who was then still alive, demanded the most severe punishment for the guilty. The burning of heretics condemned by the Inquisition took place in the presence of Philip II, his brother Don Juan of Austria and his son Don Carlos. Even the Spanish Primate, Archbishop Bartholomew Carranza of Toledo, in whose arms Charles V died, was arrested (1559) for his penchant for Lutheranism, and only papal intercession saved him from the fire. With such energetic measures at the very beginning of his reign, Philip II immediately "cleared" Spain of "heretics". Individual cases of persecution for falling away from Catholicism occurred, however, in the following years.

Religious Wars of the Reformation Era

Religious R. of the XVI century. caused a number of wars, both internecine and international. During the short and localized religious wars in Switzerland and Germany (see above) at the end of the first half of the 16th century. an era of terrible religious wars that have acquired an international character begins - an era spanning a whole century (counting from the beginning of the Schmalkalden War in 1546 to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648) and disintegrating into the "century" of Philip II of Spain, the main figure in international reaction in the second half of the XVI century, and the times of the Thirty Years War, in the first half of the XVII century. At this time, the Catholics of individual countries stretch out their hands to each other, pinning their hopes on the mighty Spain; the Spanish king becomes the head of international reaction, using not only the means that his enormous monarchy provided him, but also the support of the Catholic parties in individual countries, as well as the moral and monetary assistance of the papal throne. This forced the Protestants of different states to come closer to each other. The Calvinists in Scotland, France, the Netherlands, and the English Puritans considered their cause to be common; Queen Elizabeth has provided assistance to Protestants many times. The reactionary attempts of Philip II were rebuffed. In 1588 his "invincible armada", sent to conquer England, was wrecked; in 1589, Henry IV ascended the throne in France, pacifying the country and at the same time (1598) giving freedom of religion to the Protestants and making peace with Spain; finally, the Netherlands successfully fought Philip II and forced his successor to conclude an armistice. These wars, which were tearing apart the far west of Europe, had hardly ended when a new religious struggle began to prepare in another part of it. Henry IV, back in the eighties of the 16th century, who proposed to Elizabeth of England the device of a general Protestant union, dreamed of it at the end of his life, turning his eyes to Germany, where strife between Catholics and Protestants threatened civil strife, but his death at the hands of a Catholic fanatic (1610) put an end to his plans. At this time, by virtue of an armistice concluded for twelve years (1609), the war between Catholic Spain and Protestant Holland had just ended; in Germany, the Protestant Union (1608) and the Catholic League (1609) had already been concluded, which soon after had to enter into armed struggle among themselves. At the same time, the war between Spain and Holland began again; in France the Huguenots launched a new revolt; in the northeast, there was a struggle between Protestant Sweden and Catholic Poland, whose king, Catholic Sigismund III (from the Swedish Vasa dynasty), having lost the Swedish crown, challenged the rights to it from his uncle Charles IX and his son Gustav-Adolf, the future hero of the Thirty Years War ... Dreaming of a Catholic reaction in Sweden, Sigismund acted in concert with Austria. Thus, in international politics in the second half of the XVI and in the first half of the XVII centuries. we see the division of European states into two religious camps. Of these, the Catholic camp was distinguished by a greater cohesion and a more aggressive character, headed by the Habsburgs, first the Spanish (at the time of Philip II), then the Austrian (during the Thirty Years' War). If Philip II managed to break the resistance of the Netherlands, acquire France for his home, and turn England and Scotland into one Catholic Britain - and such were his plans - if, somewhat later, the aspirations of the Emperors Ferdinands II and III were realized, if, finally, Sigismund III dealt with Sweden and Moscow and used part of the Polish forces that were operating in Russia in the time of troubles to fight in western Europe in the interests of Catholicism — the victory of the reaction would have been complete; but Protestantism had defenders in the person of such sovereigns and politicians such as Elizabeth of England, William of Orange, Henry IV of France, Gustav-Adolphus of Sweden, and in the person of entire peoples whose national independence was threatened by Catholic reaction. The struggle took on such a character that Scotland, during the reign of Mary Stuart, and England, under Elizabeth, and the Netherlands and Sweden, under Charles IX and Gustav political hegemony over Europe. Catholicism strove, in international politics, to suppress national independence; Protestantism, on the contrary, linked its business with the cause of national independence. Therefore, in general, the international struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism was a struggle between cultural reaction, absolutism and the enslavement of nationalities, on the one hand, and cultural development, political freedom and national independence, on the other.

Catholic reformation or counter-reformation

Usually R.'s influence on Catholicism is understood only in the sense of provoking in him a reaction against a new religious movement. But with this counter-reformation (Gegenreformation) or Catholic reaction was combined the renewal of Catholicism itself, making it possible to speak of "Catholic R." When the reformation movement of the 16th century began, disorganization and demoralization prevailed in the Catholic Church. Many were pushed into Protestantism by the apparent unwillingness of the spiritual authorities to make the most necessary transformations. R. took the old church completely by surprise, as a result of which the organization of the Catholic reaction against R. could not immediately arise. To take advantage of the reactionary mood caused by the extremes of the movement, to strengthen this mood, to rally the social forces inclined to it, to direct them towards one goal, the Catholic Church itself had to undergo some reform, opposing the "heresies" with legal corrections. All this little by little happened, starting from the forties of the 16th century, when, with the help of reaction, a new order of the Jesuits was founded (1540), the supreme court of inquisition was established in Rome (1542), strict book censorship was organized and the Council of Trent was convened (1545). , which later produced the Catholic R. Its result was the Catholicism of modern times. Before the beginning of R. Catholicism was something numb in official formalism; now he got life and movement. It was not the church of the 14th and 15th centuries, which could neither live nor die, but an active system, adapting to circumstances, ingratiating himself with kings and peoples, enticing everyone, some with despotism and tyranny, some with indulgent tolerance and freedom; it was no longer a powerless institution that sought outside help, not showing a sincere desire to reform and renew itself, but a slender organization that began to use in the society, re-educated by it, great authority and, knowing how to fanatic the masses, led them in the fight against Protestantism. Pedagogy and diplomacy were the two great tools that the reformed church operated: training the individual and forcing her to serve other people's goals so that she herself did not notice it - these were two arts that especially distinguished the main representatives of the revived Catholicism. Catholic reaction has a long and complex history, the essence of which has always been the same everywhere. Culturally and socially, it was the story of the theological and clerical suppression of independent thought and public freedom - suppression, in which representatives of the revived and militant Catholicism sometimes competed, but not with such zeal and not with such success, representatives of Protestant intolerance and Protestant rigorism. The political history of Catholic reaction boils down to the subordination of domestic and foreign policy to the reactionary trend, to the formation of a large international union of Catholic states, to incite hostility in its members against Protestant countries, even to interference in the internal affairs of these latter. From the end of the 16th century Poland joined the main political forces of reaction, Spain and Austria, and became the operational base of the Catholic Church and against Orthodoxy.

The general historical significance of the Reformation

The general historical significance of R. is enormous. The starting points of the new religious systems were in complete opposition to Catholicism. Church authority collided with individual freedom, formal piety - with inner religiosity, traditional immobility - with the progressive development of reality; however, R. was often only a change of form, and not of principle: for example, in many respects Calvinism was only a fragment of Catholicism. Often, the reformation replaced one church authority in matters of faith with another with the same, or the authority of secular power, determined for all the obligatory external forms and, having established certain principles of church life, was made in relation to these principles by a conservative force, preventing their further change. Thus, contrary to the basic principles of Protestantism, R. in fact often retained old cultural and social traditions. Protestantism, taken from the principled side, was a religious individualism and at the same time an attempt to free the state from church tutelage. The latter succeeded to a greater extent than the implementation of the individualistic principle: the state not only freed itself from church tutelage, but subjugated the church itself and even took the place of the church in relation to its subjects, directly contrary to the individualistic principle R. By its individualism and the liberation of the state from theocratic tutelage Protestantism converges with the humanism of the Renaissance, in which individualistic and secularistic aspirations were also strong. Common features of the Renaissance and R. are the desire of the individual to create his own view of the world and to take a critical attitude towards traditional authorities, the liberation of life from ascetic demands, the rehabilitation of the instincts of human nature, expressed in the denial of monasticism and celibacy of the clergy, the emancipation of the state, and the secularization of church property. Humanism, indifferent or too rationally related to religion, turned out to be unable to develop an individualistic principle of freedom of conscience, born, albeit with great torment, by the reformation; R., in turn, was unable to understand the freedom of thought that arose in the culture of humanism; only later did the synthesis of these heritage of Protestantism and humanism take place. In its political literature, humanism did not develop the idea of ​​political freedom, which, on the contrary, was defended in their writings by the Protestants (in the 16th century the Calvinists, in the 17th century the Independents); Protestant political writers could not detach state life from religious coloring, as humanism did: here, too, only later did the political views of the Reformation and the Renaissance merge. The religious and political freedom of the new Europe owes its origin primarily to Protestantism; free thought and the secular nature of culture originate from humanism. In particular, the case is presented as follows. 1) Protestantism gave birth to the principle of freedom of conscience, although R. did not implement it. The starting point of the reformation was a religious protest, which was based on a moral conviction: all who became Protestants by inner conviction often met with opposition from the church and the state, but courageously and even enduring martyrdom defended the freedom of their conscience, elevating it to the principle of religious life ... In most cases, however, this principle was distorted in practice. Quite often, the persecuted referred to him only in self-defense, not having enough tolerance not to become persecutors of others when the opportunity presented itself, and thinking that, as possessors of the truth, they could force others to admit it. Putting R. under the patronage of secular authorities, the reformers themselves transferred to her the rights of the old church over the individual conscience. In defending their faith, Protestants referred not only to their individual right, as Luther did at the Diet of Worms, but mainly to the obligation to obey God more than people; this same obedience justified their intolerance towards disbelief, which they equated with an insult to the Divine. The reformers recognized the state's right to punish heretics, in which the secular authorities were in full agreement with them, seeing in the deviation from the dominant religion as disobedience to its commands. 2) R. reacted with hostility to freedom of thought, although she contributed to its development. In general, in R., theological authority was placed above the activity of human thought; the charge of rationalism was one of the strongest in the eyes of the reformers. Fearing heresy, they not only forgot the rights of someone else's conscience, but also denied the rights of their own reason. Meanwhile, the very protest of the reformers against the requirement of the Catholic Church to believe without reasoning included the recognition of certain rights for individual understanding; it was highly illogical to acknowledge freedom of research and punish its results. An element of scientific research was introduced into theological studies by those of the humanists who, with an interest in classical authors, combined an interest in the Holy Scriptures and the Church Fathers and applied humanistic methods to theology. For Luther himself, studying the Bible with new techniques was a series of scientific discoveries. Therefore, in spite of the general principle of the subordination of reason to the authority of Holy Scripture, the need to interpret the latter required the activity of reason, and rationalism, despite the enmity of theologians and mystics, penetrated the matter of church reform. The free-thinking of the Italian humanists was rarely directed towards religion, but in an effort to free reason from theological tutelage, they invented a special trick, asserting that what is true in philosophy can be false in theology and vice versa. In the XVI century. thought was directed mainly towards solving religious issues, and the mystical idea of ​​internal revelation was only the predecessor of the later teaching, in which reason itself was the revelation of the Divine and was considered as the source of religious truth. 3) The mutual relations of church and state in Catholicism were understood in the sense of the primacy of the first over the second. Now the church either submits to the state (Lutheranism and Anglicanism), or, as it were, merges with it (Calvinism), but in both cases the state has a confessional character, and the church is a state institution. The liberation of the state from the church and informing it of the nature of the institution of the national-political violated the principles of Catholic theocratism and universalism. Any connection between church and state was broken only in sectarianism. In general, we can say that R. gave the state predominance and even domination over the church, making religion itself an instrument of state power. In whatever relations the church and the state became between themselves in the era of R., in any case, these relations were a combination of religion and politics. The whole difference consisted in what was taken as an end and what as a means. If in the Middle Ages politics usually had to serve religion, then, on the contrary, in modern times very often religion was forced to serve politics. Already some humanists (for example, Machiavelli) saw in religion a kind of instrumentum imperii. Catholic writers point out, not without reason, that this was a return to a pagan state: in a Christian state, religion should not be a political means. The sectarians took the same point of view. The very essence of sectarianism did not allow it to organize itself into any state church, as a result of which it had to lead to a gradual separation of religion and politics. This was best manifested in the English independence of the 17th century, but the principle of separation of church and state was fully realized in the North American colonies of England, from which the United States arose. The separation of religion from politics led to the non-interference of the state in the beliefs of its subjects. This was a logical conclusion from sectarianism, which saw in religion primarily a matter of personal conviction, and not an instrument of state rule. From this point of view, religious freedom was an inalienable right of the individual, and in this it differs from religious tolerance arising from the concessions of the state, which itself determines the boundaries of these concessions. 4) Finally, R. had a great influence on the formulation and solution of social and political issues in the spirit of equality and freedom, although she also contributed to opposite social tendencies. Mystical Anabaptism in Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands was a preaching of social equality; rationalistic anti-Trinitarianism in Poland had an aristocratic character; many Polish sectarians of the gentry rank defended the right of true Christians to have "subjects" or slaves, referring to the Old Testament. Everything, in this case, depended on the environment in which sectarianism developed. The same can be said about the political teachings of Protestants: Lutheranism and Anglicanism were distinguished by a monarchical character, Zwinglianism and Calvinism were republican. It is often said that Protestantism has always been on the side of freedom, and Catholicism has always been on the side of power. This is not true: the roles of Catholics and Protestants changed according to circumstances, and the same principles that Calvinists used to justify their rebellion against "wicked" kings were also used by Catholics when they dealt with heretical sovereigns. This is generally observed in Jesuit political literature, but it is especially pronounced in France during the religious wars. Of particular importance for understanding the further political development of Western Europe is the development of the idea of ​​democracy in Calvinism. The Calvinists were not the inventors of this idea, and they were not the only ones who developed it in the 16th century; but never until then had it received simultaneously such a theological foundation and such practical influence (see Monarchomakhs). The Calvinists (and in the 17th century the Independents) believed in its truth, while the Jesuits, taking the same point of view, saw only one advantage of it under certain circumstances.

Very recently, attempts have begun in the historical literature to determine the meaning of R. from an economic point of view: not only are they trying to reduce R. to economic reasons, but also to derive economic consequences from it. These attempts make sense only to the extent that interaction is recognized behind both phenomena, i.e., the reformation movement and the economic process. It is impossible to reduce the reform movement to one economic reasons or to attribute well-known economic phenomena exclusively to it; it is impossible, for example, to explain only the transition to Protestantism, the economic development of Holland and England, or the triumph of Catholicism - the economic decline of Spain (as Macaulay did). There is no doubt, however, that there is a connection between facts of both categories. Historians have long been talking about the need to calculate what the religious fanaticism cost Europe, dividing different parts of the same people or entire nations into hostile camps. The question arises: where did the enormous material resources come from that allowed the Western European sovereigns to assemble large armies and equip huge fleets? The course of R.'s history in the West would undoubtedly have been different without the grandiose international clashes that took place in the 16th century. possible only as a result of important changes in the monetary economy. Further, of particular interest is the question of the connection between religious religion and economic history in relation to the class differences of Western European society in the 16th century. The reasons for dissatisfaction with the Catholic clergy and church orders, which were very often economic in nature (impoverishment of the nobility, the heaviness of tithes, burdening the peasants with extortions), were far from the same in the individual estates and classes into which the then society was disintegrated. If not class interests in themselves forced one or another part of the population to come under the banner of one or another formula, as is often observed in the reformation era, then in any case class differences had an impact, at least indirectly, on the formation of religious parties. So, for example, in the era of the French religious wars, the Huguenot party had a predominantly noble character, and the Catholic league consisted mainly of urban common people, while the "politicians" (see) were mainly the wealthy bourgeoisie. The secularization of church property was in direct connection with religious R. In the hands of the clergy and monasteries, a huge number of inhabited estates were concentrated, sometimes almost half of the entire territory. Where the secularization of church property took place, therefore, a whole agrarian revolution took place, which had important economic consequences. At the expense of the clergy and monasteries, mainly the nobility was enriched, with which the state power, which carried out secularization, for the most part shared its booty. The secularization of church property coincided in time with two important processes in the social history of Western Europe. Firstly, the impoverishment of the nobility took place everywhere, which, looking for ways to improve their affairs, on the one hand leaned on the peasant masses, as we see, for example, in Germany, during the era of the Great Peasant War, and on the other, it began to strive for the seizure of the land property of the clergy and monasteries. Secondly, at this time, a transition began from the old, medieval form of economy to a new one designed for more extensive production. The old ways of extracting income from the land could most easily be retained where the property retained its previous owners - and nowhere was economic conservatism so dominant as on church lands. The transfer of the latter to new owners was inevitably bound to facilitate economic changes. Church R. helped here a process rooted in the economic sphere.

Historical and philosophical views on the reformation

The crudely confessional point of view of the first historians of R. in our time has given way to more objective criticism. The main merit of the historical clarification of the entire era belongs, nevertheless, to Protestant writers or sympathizers with Protestantism, as a well-known form of religious consciousness, and in general, the writers of the Catholic camp are trying in vain to shake their idea of ​​R. In some cases, however, it is necessary to reckon with the introduced this side of the amendments, especially since the judgments of Protestant historians were often influenced by preconceived notions. The litigation between the two camps has now been transferred to a new soil: before, the dispute was about whose side the religious truth was on, while now some are trying to prove that R. contributed to the general cultural and social progress, others that it slowed him down. Thus, a certain non-confessional historical criterion is sought for solving the question of the meaning of R. In a whole series of works of a historical and philosophical nature, attempts have been made to clarify the historical significance of R. without regard to the inner truth or falsity of Protestantism. And here, however, we meet with a one-sided attitude to the matter. Transferring to the past that view of the positive meaning of knowledge with which hopes for the future are combined in positivism, it was easy to declare “organic” only that historical movement that manifested itself in the development of science, which should provide solid foundations for all areas of thought and life. Next to him, as clearing the way for him, another movement was set up - a critical one, destroying what could not be destroyed first because of his weakness, but was subject to destruction in order to create a new one. From these two movements - organic (positive, creative) and critical (negative, destructive), they began to distinguish the third movement - "reformation", as such, which only externally stands in hostile relations to the old order of things, but in reality only seeks to transform the past, keeping the old content under new forms. From this point of view, the first movement is represented by the successes of positive science, at first in the field of natural science and only much later in the field of human (cultural and social) relations, the second - by the development of skepticism aimed at questions of abstract thought and real life, the third - by the emergence and spread of Protestantism, which inherited from Catholicism a hostile attitude towards free thought. Many tend, therefore, to see the reformation movement as more reactionary than progressive. It is difficult to agree with such an interpretation. First, there is only one mental development in mind; it is only in relation to it that it is recommended to evaluate religious religion, which was really accompanied by the fall of secular science and the development of theological intolerance. At the same time, other spheres of life are forgotten - moral, social and political, and in them R. played a different role, depending on the circumstances of place and time. Secondly, outside the reform movement, in the era of its domination, only the critical movement could have real force, since the organic was barely born and, due to its weakness and limitation, could not play a social role. Meanwhile, the critical movement had only negative and destructive significance; It was quite natural, therefore, that, feeling the need for positive views and striving to create new relationships, the people of the 16th and 17th centuries had to go under the banner of religious ideas, Protestant and sectarian. Religious R. of the XVI century. undoubtedly wiped out the secular cultural (among other things, scientific) movement of humanism, but humanistic morality, politics and science could not become the same force in wide circles of society and especially among the masses, which the Protestant and sectarian movements were at that time - could not to be such a force both in terms of its internal properties, due to the extreme undevelopment of its own content, and in terms of external conditions, in accordance with their inconsistency with the cultural state of society.

Literature

R.'s historiography is very extensive; here it is not possible to cite the titles of all works of any importance, especially since her contemporaries began to write the history of R. Only the most important works are named below; see details in "Lectures on World History" by Petrov (vol. III), in the works of Lavisse and Rambeau and in "History of Western Europe in Modern Times" (vol. I and especially II) by Kareev.

Reformation in general and some aspects of the issue. Fisher, "The Reformation" (important for its bibliography of sources and manuals, but outdated); Merle d "Aubigné," Hist. de la Réformation au XVI siècl e "and" H. d. l. R. au temps de Calvin "; Geiser (H ä usser)," History of R. "; Laurent," La R é forme "(VIII volume of his" Etudes sur l "histoire de l" humanit é "); Byrd ( Beard), "P. XVI century in its relation to new thinking and knowledge "; M. Carriere," Die philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit. See also works on church history - Gieseler, Baur, Henke, Hagenbach ("Reformationsgeschichte") and Herzog, "Realencyclop ädie fü r protestantische Theologie. "Works on individual forms of Protestantism are indicated under the appropriate words. For religious movements that preceded R., see Hefele," Conciliengeschichte "; Zimmermann," Die kirchlichen Verfassungsk ämpfeformation des XV Jahrh. "; Hü bler," Die Constanzer Rector und die Concordate von 1418 "; V. Mikhailovsky," The main precursors and predecessors of R. "(in an appendix to the Russian translation. Works by Geisser); Ullmann," Reformatoren vor der Reformation "; Keller," Die Reformation und die älteren Reformparteien " ; Döllinger, "Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters"; Erbkam, "Ge sch. der protest. Sekten im Zeitalter der Reformation ". There are several works specially devoted to the definition of the mutual relationship between humanism and P .: Nisard," Renaissance et R éforme "; Szujski," Odrodzenie i reformacya w Polsce "; Cornelius," Die münsterischen Humanisten und ihr Verhä ltniss zur Reformation "and others. The same issue is considered in some general works (for Germany, works by Hagen; see below) or in the biographies of humanists and reformers. Attempts to link the history of R. with economic development have not yet yielded a single major work. Kautsky, "Thomas More", with an extensive introduction (translated in the "Northern Herald" for 1891); R. Wipper (author of the work on Calvin), "Society, state, culture in the West in the 16th century." ("Peace God ", 1897); Rogers," T he economic interpretation of history "(chapter" The social effects of religions movements "). about R.'s influence on history philosophy, ethical and political doctrines, literature, etc., on the contrary, was written a lot in general and special works. Germany and German Switzerland: Ranke, "Deutsche Gesch. Im Zeitalter der Reformation"; Hagen, "Deutschlands liter. und relig. Verhältnis se im Zeitalter der Reformation "; Janssen," Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgange des Mittelalters "; Egelhaaf," Deutsche Gesch. im XVI Jahrh. bis zum Augsburger Relionsfrieden "; Bezold," Gesch. der deutschen Reformation "(in the Onken collection). The Scandinavian States: An Outline of the History of R. - in the work of Forsten," The Struggle for Dominance in the Baltic Sea "; Munter," Kirchengesch. von D änemark "; Knös," Darstellung der schwedischen Kirchenverfassung "; Weidling," Schwed. Gesch. im Zeitalter der Reformation ". England and Scotland: V. Sokolov," The Reformation in England "; Weber," Gesch. der Reformation von Grossbritannien "; Maurenbrecher," England im Reformationszeitalter "; Hunt," Hist. of the relig. thought in England from the Reformation "; Dorean," Origines du schisme d "Angleterre"; Rudloff, "Gesch. Der Reformation in Schottland". See also works on the history of Puritanism in general and in particular the Independence in England. Netherlands (except for works on the Dutch Revolution): Hoop Scheffer, "Gesch. Der niederl. Ref ormation"; Brandt, "Hist. Abrégée de la réformation des Pays-Bas". France: De-Felice, "Hist. Des protestants en France"; Anquez, "Hist. Des assemblées politiques des prot. En France"; Puaux, "Hist. De la réforme française"; Soldan, "Gesch. Des Protestantismus in Frankreich"; Von Pollenz, "Gesch. Des franzö s. Calvinismus"; Luchitsky, "Feudal Aristocracy and Calvinists in France"; his, "The Catholic League and Calvinists in France". See also the Haag encyclopedia, "La France protestante". Poland and Lithuania: H. Lubovich, "History of the Reformation in Poland"; his, "The Beginning of Catholic Reaction and the Decline of the Reformation in Poland"; N. Kareev, "An Outline of the History of the Reformation Movement and Catholic Reaction in Poland"; Zhukovich, "Cardinal Gozii and the Polish Church of His Time"; Sz ujski, "Odrodzenie i reformacya w Polsce"; Zakrzewski, "Powstanie i wzrost reformacyi w Polsce". Czech Republic and Hungary (except for works on Hussite and Thirty Years' War): Gindely, "Gesch. Der b öhmischen Brüder"; Czerwenka, "Gesch. Der evangel. Kirche in Böhmen"; Dénis, "Fin de l" indépendance Bohê me "; Lichtenberger," Gesch. des Evangeliums in Ungarn "; Balogh," Gesch. der ungar.-protestant. Kirche "; Palauzov," Reform and Catholic Reaction in Hungary. Southern Romance Countries: M "Crie," Hist. Of the progress and oppr ession of the reformation in Italy "; his, "History of R. in Spain"; Comba, "Storia della riforma in Italia"; Wilkens, "Gesch. Des spanischen Protestantismus im XVI Jahrh. "; Erdmann," Die Reformation und ihre M ärtyrer in Italien "; Cantu," Gli eretici d "Italia". Counter-Reformation and Religious Wars: Maurenbrecher, "Gesch. Der Katholischen Reformation"; Philippson, "Les origines du catholicisme moderne: la contre-révolution ré ligieuse"; Ranke, "Popes, Their Church and State in the 16th and 17th Centuries." See also essays on the history of the Inquisition, censorship, the Jesuits, the Council of Trent and the Thirty Years' War; Fischer, "Geschichte der ausw ä rtigen Politik und Diplomatie im Reformations-Zeitalter"; Laurent, "Les guerres de religion" (IX volume of his "Etudes sur l" histoire de l "humanité").

Used materials

• Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron.

Option 1.

The Byzantine Empire was formed on:
A) the entire territory of the Roman Empire;
B) the territory of the Eastern Roman Empire;
C) the territory of the Western Roman Empire;

Peasant
A) had neither land, nor his own economy, nor instruments of labor;
B) had his own land, his own economy, tools of labor;
C) was completely dependent on the feudal lord, who could buy, sell, severely punish and kill him;
D) was dependent on the feudal lord, but the feudal lord's power over him was incomplete; a feudal lord could sell him along with the land, punish him severely, but he had no right to kill him.

Cities in Western Europe emerged as a result of
A) the revival of the cultural traditions of the ancient world;
B) the struggle between feudal lords and dependent peasants;
C) separation of handicrafts from agriculture;
D) separation of agriculture from cattle breeding;
E) the activities of kings and feudal lords who sought to strengthen their personal power.

Medieval workshops
A) contributed to the development of the craft;
B) guaranteed the transition of the apprentices to the master;
C) led to increased inequality among artisans;
D) ensured, as far as possible, the same conditions for all craftsmen for the production and sale of products;
E) led to the weakening of city government;
E) by the end of the Middle Ages, the development of technology began to slow down.

Humanism is:
A) a new science of man;
B) new religious teaching;
C) an art form;
D) the direction of the development of culture, the focus of which is a person.

The beginning of the reformation in Germany was:
A) the congress of princes, representatives of knights and cities in Worms;
B) the speech of Thomas Munzer in 1517 with a call to destroy the feudal order;
C) Martin Luther's speech against the trade in indulgences.

The Frankish Empire fell apart into separate states:
A) in 1000
B) in 962
B) in 843

8. Pope Gregory VII is known for:
A) organized the first crusade;
B) proclaimed the right of popes to depose emperors;
C) tried in every possible way to reconcile the Roman and Orthodox churches;
D) sought to subjugate all the sovereigns of Europe to his power;
D) broke the resistance of the German king Henry IV.

The Crusades are over:
A) the loss of all possessions of the crusaders in Muslim countries;
B) the creation of new states of the crusaders in the East;
C) the seizure of all Arab states and the conversion of a significant part of the Arab population to Christianity;
D) the complete defeat of the crusaders and the transition of many participants in the crusades to the Muslim faith.

In the XIII - XIV centuries. Czech:
A) was an independent state;
B) was part of the Holy Roman Empire;
C) was part of the Ottoman Empire;

Characteristic features of developed feudalism:
A) the craft is separated from agriculture;
B) exchange between town and country is increasing;
C) the peasants are freed from feudal dependence;
D) feudal fragmentation is increasing;
E) the royal power is strengthened and feudal fragmentation is eliminated;
E) the class struggle is weakening;
G) the class struggle is intensifying;
H) the influence of the church on public affairs decreases;
I) the decomposition of the feudal system and the emergence of capitalist relations.

2. Answer the questions:
What is the Reformation? Describe the main doctrines of the Reformation era.
What were the characteristic features of absolutism? What prerequisites for strengthening the central government have developed in the countries of Western Europe?
List the great discoveries.

Test work on the topic: "Europe and Asia in the V-XVII centuries."
Option 2.
1. Choose the correct answer (s):
The early Middle Ages is called the period from:
A) III - X centuries.
B) IV - XI centuries.
C) V-XII centuries.
D) V - XI centuries.
E) VI - X centuries.

The workshop is:
A) an association of apprentices and apprentices of one city;
B) unification of apprentices and apprentices of one specialty;
C) a union of artisans living in the same city;
D) a union of artisans of one specialty living in one country;
E) a union of artisans of the same specialty living in the same city.

The division of the Christian Church into Orthodox and Catholic took place:
A) 986
B) 1044
B) 1147
D) 1054
D) 1225

Labor in factories was more productive than labor in a craftsman's workshop, because:
A) the workers in the manufactory worked under pain of punishment;
B) machines were used at the manufactory;
C) the workers of the manufactory earned more than the artisans;
D) at the manufactory, the division of labor was applied between workers.

Martin Luther is
A) small knight;
B) a prominent scientist of the Middle Ages;
C) a wandering monk;
D) a famous doctor and traveler;
E) learned monk, university professor, founder of the Reformation in Germany.

Revival is;
A) the restoration of the lost positions by the Catholic Church;
B) the period and process of the emergence of a completely new culture;
C) the period and process of restoration of the cultural traditions of antiquity;
D) strengthening the power of the bourgeoisie;
E) a period of temporary strengthening of the feudal system.

The reasons for the collapse of the early feudal states were:
A) depending on the king of the feudal lords;
B) the independence of the feudal lords from the king;
C) in wars between feudal lords.

Check the composition of the feudal ladder and write it down correctly:
A) knights;
B) peasants;
B) the king;
D) barons;
E) Counts and Dukes.

Jacquerie is:
A) religious movement;
B) a peasant uprising caused by an increase in payments and the distress of the people;
C) the popular movement for the liberation of France from the British;
D) war between two groups of feudal lords in France.

Jan Hus is:
A) a major Czech feudal lord;
B) an impoverished Czech knight;
C) a village priest;
D) Catholic monk;
E) Professor at the University of Prague.

2. Answer the questions:
What types of manufactories do you know? What were their advantages over the guild associations of the Middle Ages?
What was the significance of the Counter-Reformation? How has the policy of the Roman Catholic Church changed?
List the main bodies of estate representation in Western Europe.

Attached files

Knowledge hypermarket >> History >> Grade 10 history >> History: Western Europe: a new stage of development

Western Europe: a new stage of development

In the fifteenth, and especially in the sixteenth century, the appearance of most European countries underwent significant changes. They were caused by the development of manufacturing, changes in social and political life. A spiritual the revolution associated with the Renaissance and the Reformation. These changes paved the way for bourgeois revolutions and an industrial revolution. It is no coincidence that the late Middle Ages, when qualitatively new realities began to affect the life of European peoples, are often characterized as early modern times.

The transition to manufacturing

The development of a profitable colonial trade (for example, spices in the Indian markets cost about 100 times less than in Europe) contributed to the rapid growth of commercial capital. Large joint-stock companies, such as the East India, conducted operations in the markets of dozens of countries, had not only a merchant fleet, but also equipped military expeditions. Trade required the creation of a system of bank credit, operations with shares of trading companies, bills of exchange, non-cash payments, money transfer and exchange services. All this contributed to the development of banking, the emergence of the first stock exchanges. Antwerp, Amsterdam, Genoa. Lyon, London in the XVI century became the largest centers of financial activity. Leading banking and trading houses have become the main lenders of the monarchs, providing them with loans at high interest rates, acquiring the right to collect taxes, pledging land and real estate.

In an effort to expand the scale of their operations, traders invested in production development. Its workshop organization, although it remained for about two centuries, has largely outlived its usefulness. Strict regulation of the work of foremen and apprentices, the quantity of products produced, and the techniques of the craft hindered the increase in labor productivity and the introduction of new technology.

Despite the fact that under these conditions the technical progress developed very slowly, nevertheless gradually it led to the emergence of new technologies and types of products.

In the 15th century, instead of the traditional hearth, a blast furnace began to be used, in which not charcoal, but stone coal was used. This increased the smelting of metal, improved its quality, and new alloys were created. The development of metallurgy made it possible to improve artillery and small arms fire, to create complex metal products. Water and windmills have been improved. In mining, they began to use pumps for pumping water, trolleys for lifting ore to the surface. the depth of the mines and adits was now measured in hundreds of meters.

After the invention of book printing in 1445 by the German artisan I. Gutenberg (1Z99-1468), printing became widespread. By 1500, already in 12 European countries there were large printing houses, about 40 thousand titles of books were published. With the invention of mechanical (spring) clocks, the watch industry began to develop.

New, more productive technologies have appeared in the traditional European textile and glass industries. The new, manufactory, production partly absorbed the old shop-floor production, partly displaced it.

Initially, the so-called scattered manufactories arose. Top-level houses, trying to bypass shop restrictions, to get more products at lower prices, began to distribute orders among urban and rural artisans, taking on all the worries about the purchase of raw materials, semi-finished products, and sales of products. This type of manufactory prevailed in the textile industry.

Mixed manufactories have become widespread in the manufacture of more complex products, such as watches. Some of their parts were made by artisans with a narrow specialization or guild craftsmen. and the assembly was carried out in the workshop of the entrepreneur.

Finally, centralized manufactories arose, in which all labor operations were carried out in one room using machines and tools belonging to the entrepreneur, and the labor of hired workers. In centralized manufactories, due to a clear organization of labor, the division of the labor process into a number of relatively simple operations, labor productivity was achieved by an order of magnitude higher than in workshops and among individual artisans. Centralized weapons factories were usually created under the auspices of monarchs, at the expense of the state.

The emergence of manufactories in many European countries, gradually replacing workshop production, had a great influence on the development of European society.

Bo-first, an increase in production volumes, an increase in the range of products produced have become a source of accelerated development of commodity-money relations. Landowners sought to replace duties peasants- tenants in monetary rent. In conditions when manufactories showed an increasing demand for raw materials, a significant part of the land began to be allotted for technical crops and sheep breeding.

In England, the practice of so-called fencing has acquired a wide scale since the 16th century. Landlords drove the tenants from the land. The communal lands were assigned for pastures by the decision of the parliament. Land plots of small owners were bought by entrepreneurs and were also used for animal husbandry or commodity production of agricultural products. For several decades, the small peasantry, conducting subsistence or semi-subsistence farming, disappeared in England. The phrase “the sheep ate the people” became widespread.

Bo-second, there were changes in the social structure of society, The importance of entrepreneurs increased - bankers, merchants, and owners of manufactures. At the same time, the number of the poor has increased - artisans, ruined by competition with manufactures, peasant tenants, whose lands were taken away for

pastures, The population of Europe from 1500 to 1600 almost doubled - from 80-100 million to 180 million people. Cities developed especially rapidly. In the largest of them (Antwerp, Brussels, Hamburg, Lyon, Lisbon, London, Naples, Paris, Prague, Rome, Florence, Seville, etc.), the population exceeded 100 thousand people.

All this exacerbated the problem of the rural and especially the urban poor, created an explosive mass of people deprived of the minimum welfare of life. In London at the beginning of the 17th century, about 1/4 of the population was made up of the poor, without work.

B-third, the development of production and trade contributed to the formation of single domestic markets. They were based on the division of labor between individual regions and cities of large European states. At the same time, the division of labor began to develop on a pan-European scale. Copper, silver, zinc were smelted in the lands of Germany, Tyrol, Hungary. France, England and Sweden became centers of Metallurgy. Centers for the production of glass products, porcelain, lace, satin and brocade, and weapons arose of pan-European importance.

Renaissance

Changes in the outlook and nature of the activities of Europeans had a huge impact on their worldview and attitude to the surrounding reality.

A look at the life of most people is classic Middle ages was determined mainly by the routine of everyday life. The life path, the outlook of each person was associated with his class origin, the profession of his parents. For the bulk of the population, obedience to the circumstances, to the will of the lord was considered dignity. There were few literate people, among them were ministers of the church, whose interests were limited to the study of theological literature and theological disputes.

It was no accident that the development of a new, secular culture began in Italy in the 14th - 15th centuries. In its large cities, the importance of trade increased, the first manufactories arose, and a stratum of literate, educated people not associated with the church was formed. The coming time gave birth to new heroes - people who are enterprising, proactive, not afraid of risk, adventures associated with trade, investment, travel to overseas countries.

The era of the Renaissance (Renaissance) is considered to be time. When the arisen interest in the personality of a person, his individuality, his achievements was realized in an appeal to the spiritual culture and art of antiquity. The works of thinkers and historians of antiquity, lost in the monastic libraries, began to be republished. The creations of ancient sculptors, previously forgotten and buried under the ruins of the palaces of the Roman nobility and pagan temples, began to arouse admiration. One gets the idea, largely illusory, that the ancient era was the time of heroes, the flourishing of culture and the triumph of human genius. Many artists, sculptors, writers, poets of the Renaissance, creating genuine masterpieces, considered themselves only imitators of the masters of antiquity.

In literary work, the Renaissance era began with the Florentine poets and writers - Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Francesca Petrarca (1304-1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1373). Their traditions in England were continued by the poet D. Chaucer (1Z40-1400) and the dramatist W. Shakespeare (1564-1616), in the Netherlands - by E. Rotterdam (1466-15З6), in France - by F. Rabelais (1494-1553).

With all the variety of genres of their work, there were common features in it. This is, first of all, a new look of the heroes of their works - people not necessarily of noble origin, but curious, seeking to realize their aspirations, to get to know the world around them in all its diversity. Often referring to the existing order with irony and skepticism. It was during the Renaissance that the term "humanism" was born, which originally meant not "philanthropy", but "the study of man."

The appeal to man, the beauty of the human body is characteristic of Renaissance artists and sculptors - S. Botticelli (1445-1510), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), Raphael Santi (148Z-1520).

The beginning of the Reformation. First religious wars in Europe

New realities, the formation of a humanistic outlook on the world affected the religious foundations of the medieval worldview.

The 70-year Avignon captivity of popes, who were forced to move their residence to France, significantly weakened the influence of the Roman Catholic churches on secular dignitaries. Only in 1377. thanks to the failures of France in the Hundred Years War, Pope Gregory XI managed to return the residence of the head of the church to Rome. However, after his death in 1377. the French bishops elected their pope, and the Italian bishops theirs. Church Council, convened in 1409. deposed both popes and elected his own candidate. The false popes did not recognize the decisions of the council. So the Roman Catholic Church had three chapters at the same time, Schism, that is, the split of the church, which lasted until 1417, significantly weakened its influence in the largest countries of Europe - England, France and Spain.

In the Czech Republic, which was part of Roman Empire, a movement arose for the creation of a national church with a more democratic order of service, its conduct in the Czech language. The founder of this movement, professor of the Prague University Jan Tus (1Z71-1415), was accused of heresy and burned at the stake at the church council in Constance. However, his followers in the Czech Republic, led by the knight Jan ižka (1Z60-14ZO), rose to armed struggle. The Hussites demanded that the clergy observe ascetic norms of life, denounced the Roman Catholic clergy for committing mortal sins. Their demands were widely supported by the peasantry and townspeople. The Hussites captured almost the entire territory of the Czech Republic and carried out the secularization (confiscation) of church lands, which mainly passed into the hands of secular feudal lords.

In 1420-1431 Rome and the empire undertook five crusades against the Hussites, who they declared to be heretics. However, the Crest-bearers did not manage to achieve a military victory. Detachments of the Hussites carried out counterattacks on the territory of Hungary, Bavaria, Brandenburg. At the Basel Cathedral in 1433, the Roman Catholic Church made concessions, recognizing the right to exist in the Czech Republic of the church with a special order of service.

The massacre of J. Hus did not stop the spread of skepticism towards the Roman Catholic Church. The most serious challenge to her was the teachings of M. Luther (148З-1546), a monk of the Order of the Avgustines, professor at the University of Wittenbach (Germany). He opposed the sale of indulgences, i.e. absolution for money, which was an important source of income for the church. Luther argued that this deprives the meaning of repentance, which should contribute to the spiritual cleansing of a person.

The Word of God, Luther believed, is set forth in the Bible, and only Holy Scripture, which is accessible to every person, opens the way for people to revelation, the salvation of the soul. The decrees of councils, statements of the church fathers, rituals, prayers, worship of icons and holy relics, according to Luther, have nothing to do with the true faith.

In 1520 Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther. Imperial Reichstag. in 1521, having examined the views of Luther, he condemned him. However, the number of adherents of Lutheranism grew. In 1522-1523. In Germany, an uprising of knights broke out, who demanded a reform of the church, the secularization of its land holdings.

In 1524-1525. Germanic lands were engulfed in the Peasant War, which began under religious slogans. Among the rebels, the ideas of the Anabaptists were especially popular. They denied not only the official, Catholic, hierarchy, but also the Holy Scriptures, believing that every believer can receive the revelation of the Lord by turning to him with his soul and heart.

The main idea of ​​the uprising, which engulfed Swabia, Württemberg, Franconia, Thuringia, Alsace and the Alpine lands of Austria, was the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. As one of his spiritual leaders, T. Münzer (1490-1525), believed, the path to this kingdom lies through the overthrow of monarchs, the destruction of monasteries and castles, the triumph of complete equality. The main demands were the restoration of communal land tenure, the abolition of duties, and the reform of the church.

Neither Luther nor the city dwellers supported the insurgents' demands. The troops of the German princes defeated the poorly organized peasant armies. When the uprising was suppressed, about 150 thousand peasants died.

This victory significantly increased the influence of the princes, who took less and less into account the opinion of the Roman Catholic Church and emperors. In 1529, many princes and free cities protested against the prohibition of the new, Lutheran faith by the imperial Reichstayum. In the possessions of the protesting (Protestant) princes, monasteries and Catholic churches were closed, their lands passed into the hands of secular rulers.

The seizure of ecclesiastical lands and the subordination of the church to secular rulers became inevitable. For this purpose, in 1555, a religious peace was concluded in the empire, the principle of "whose power, that is, faith" was adopted. She was supported even by the princes loyal to Catholicism.

The weakening of the position and influence of the Catholic Church was observed not only in Germany, the Swiss reformer of the church. A French immigrant, Jean Calvin (1509-1564) created a doctrine that became very popular in cities, especially among entrepreneurs. According to his views, if a person is lucky in life, in earthly affairs, in particular in trade and entrepreneurship, then this is a sign , testifying to the favor of God to him. More than that, it is a sign that on condition of righteous behavior, he will gain the salvation of his soul. Calvinism rigidly regulated human everyday life.

So, in Geneva, having accepted the views of Calvin, entertainment, music, and the wearing of fashionable clothes were prohibited.

England also broke with the Catholic Church. The reason for this was the conflict between the Pope and King Henry VIII (1509-1547). Not having received permission from Rome to divorce, he achieved in 1534 from parliament the adoption of a law by which a new, Anglican church was established in England. The king was proclaimed its head. He was given the right to carry out reforms of the church, eradicate heresy, and appoint clergy. Monasteries were closed, church lands were confiscated, divine services began to be conducted in English, the cult of saints and the norms requiring the clergy to observe the vow of celibacy were abolished.

The Catholic Church could not resist the ideas of the Reformation. The Jesuit Order became a new instrument of her policy. Founded by Itatii Loyola (1491-1556). The order was built on the principles of strict discipline, its members took vows of non-acquisitiveness, celibacy, obedience and unconditional obedience to the Pope. The basic principle of the order was that any action is justified if it serves the true religion, i.e. Roman Catholic Church. Jesuits infiltrated the structures of power, Protestant communities, sought to weaken them from within, identifying heretics. They created schools where preachers were trained who could argue with the supporters of the Reformation.

Convened in 1545. The Council of Trent confirmed the basic tenets of the Catholic Church, condemned the principle of freedom of religion, and tightened the requirements for Catholic priests to observe the norms of a righteous life. This council marked the beginning of the Counter-Reformation - the struggle of the Catholic Church to preserve its influence. The scale of the activities of the Inquisition increased. So, she was regarded as the heretical teaching of the Polish astronomer N. Copernicus (1473-1543), who argued that the Earth is not the center of the Universe. The Inquisition sentenced to burning his follower D. Bruno (1548-1600), who refused to renounce his ideas. A wave of persecution of witches, sorcerers, people accused of complicity with evil spirits and heretical views arose.

Questions and tasks

1. What are the prerequisites for the transition to manufacturing.
2. What types of manufactories do you know? What were their advantages over the guild associations of the Middle Ages?
H. Determine the consequences of the spread of manufacturing in Europe.
4. Name the main features of the Renaissance man's worldview.
5. List the factors that contributed to the weakening of the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe.

The content of the article

REFORMATION, a powerful religious movement aimed at reforming the doctrine and organization of the Christian church, which arose in Germany in the early 16th century, quickly spread throughout most of Europe and led to separation from Rome and the formation of a new form of Christianity. After a large group of German rulers and representatives of free cities who joined the Reformation protested against the decision of the imperial Reichstag in Speyer (1529), which prohibited the further spread of reforms, their followers began to be called Protestants, and the new form of Christianity - Protestantism.

From a Catholic point of view, Protestantism was a heresy, an unauthorized departure from the revealed teachings and institutions of the church, leading to apostasy from the true faith and trampling on the moral norms of Christian life. He brought into the world a new seed of corruption and other evil. The traditional Catholic view of the Reformation is outlined by Pope Pius X in an encyclical Editae saepe(1910). The founders of the Reformation were “... people possessed by a spirit of pride and rebellion: enemies of the Cross of Christ, seeking the earthly ... whose god is their womb. They did not contemplate the correction of morals, but the denial of the fundamental dogmas of the faith, which gave rise to great turmoil and opened the way for them and others to a dissolute life. Rejecting the authority and leadership of the church and putting on the yoke of the tyranny of the most corrupt princes and people, they are trying to destroy the doctrine, dispensation and order of the church. And after that ... they dare to call their rebellion and their destruction of faith and morality "restoration" and call themselves "restorers" of the ancient order. In reality, they are the destroyers of it, and weakening the power of Europe by conflicts and wars, they have nurtured the apostasy of the New time. "

From a Protestant point of view, on the contrary, it was the Roman Catholic Church that deviated from the revealed teachings and order of primitive Christianity and thereby separated itself from the living mystical body of Christ. The hypertrophied growth of the organizational machine of the medieval church paralyzed the life of the spirit. Salvation degenerated into a kind of mass production with lavish church rites and a pseudo-ascetic lifestyle. Moreover, she usurped the gifts of the Holy Spirit in favor of the clerical caste and thus opened the door to all kinds of abuse and exploitation of Christians by a corrupted clerical bureaucracy, the center of which is papal Rome, whose corruption has become the talk of the town for all Christianity. The Protestant Reformation, far from being heretic, served to fully restore the doctrinal and moral ideals of genuine Christianity.

HISTORICAL OUTLINE

Germany.

On October 31, 1517, the young Augustinian monk Martin Luther (1483–1546), professor of theology at the newly founded University of Wittenberg, hung on the doors of the palace church 95 theses that he intended to defend in public debate. The reason for this challenge was the practice of spreading indulgences issued by the Pope to all those who made a monetary contribution to the papal treasury for the rebuilding of the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome. Dominican monks traveled throughout Germany, offering complete absolution and relief from torment in purgatory to those who, repenting and confessing their sins, paid a fee in accordance with their income. It was also possible to acquire a special indulgence for souls in purgatory. Luther's theses not only condemned abuses attributed to the sellers of indulgences, but generally denied the very principles according to which these indulgences were issued. He believed that the pope did not have the power to forgive sins (with the exception of punishments imposed by himself) and challenged the doctrine of the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints, to which the pope resorts to forgiveness of sins. In addition, Luther regretted the fact that the practice of selling indulgences gave people what he believed to be false assurances of salvation.

All attempts to force him to renounce his views on papal power and authority failed, and in the end Pope Leo X condemned Luther on 41 counts (bull Exsurge Domine 15 June 1520), and in January 1521 excommunicated him. In the meantime, the reformer published three pamphlets one after another, in which he boldly laid out the program of reforming the church - its doctrine and organization. In the first one, To the Christian nobility of the German nation for the correction of Christianity, he called on the German princes and sovereigns to reform the German church, giving it a national character and transforming it into a church free from the domination of the church hierarchy, from superstitious external rituals and from the laws allowing monastic life, celibacy of priests and other customs in which he saw perversion a truly Christian tradition. In the treatise The Babylonian Captivity of the Church Luther attacked the entire system of church sacraments, in which the church was viewed as the official and only mediator between God and the human soul. In the third pamphlet - Freedom of a Christian- he expounded his fundamental doctrine of justification by faith alone, which became a cornerstone in the theological system of Protestantism.

To the papal bull of condemnation, he responded with the condemnation of the papacy (pamphlet Against the cursed bull of the Antichrist), and the bull itself, Canon Law Code and publicly burned several brochures of his opponents. Luther was an outstanding polemicist, sarcasm and swearing are his favorite techniques. But his opponents were not distinguished by their delicacy. All the polemical literature of that time, both Catholic and Protestant, was full of personal insults and was distinguished by a rude, even obscene language.

Luther's courage and outright rebellion can be explained (at least in part) by the fact that his sermons, lectures, and pamphlets secured him the support of a large section of the clergy and a growing number of laity, both from the upper and lower classes of German society. On his side were colleagues at the University of Wittenberg, professors from other universities, some of the Augustinian brothers and many people devoted to humanistic culture. In addition, Frederick III the Wise, Elector of Saxon, Sovereign Luther, and some other German princes who sympathized with his views, took him under their protection. In their eyes, as in the eyes of ordinary people, Luther appeared as a champion of the holy cause, a reformer of the church and an exponent of the growing national consciousness of Germany.

Historians have pointed to various factors that help explain Luther's astonishingly rapid success in building a broad and influential circle of supporters. Most countries have long complained about the economic exploitation of the people by the Roman Curia, but the accusations have yielded no results. The demand for the reform of the church in capite et in membris (in relation to the head and members) was heard more and more loudly from the time of the Avignon captivity of the popes (14th century) and then during the great Western schism (15th century). Reforms were promised at the Council of Constance, but their shelved as soon as Rome consolidated its power. The reputation of the church fell even lower in the 15th century, when popes and prelates were in power, who cared too much about the earthly, and the priests were not always distinguished by high morality. The educated classes, meanwhile, were strongly influenced by the pagan humanistic mindset, and Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy was supplanted by a new wave of Platonism. Medieval theology lost its credibility, and a new secular critical position in relation to religion led to the disintegration of the entire medieval world of ideas and beliefs. Finally, an important role was played by the fact that the Reformation, while willingly recognizing by the church complete control over itself by the secular authorities, won the support of sovereigns and governments who were ready to turn religious problems into political and national ones and to consolidate the victory by force of arms or legislative coercion. In such an environment, the rebellion against the doctrinal and organizational domination of papal Rome had great chances of success.

Condemned and excommunicated by the Pope for his heretical views, Luther should, under the normal course of events, be arrested by the secular authorities; however, the Elector of Saxony defended the reformer and ensured his safety. The new emperor Charles V, king of Spain and monarch of the hereditary dominions of the Habsburgs, at this moment sought to enlist the united support of the German princes in the hope of an imminent war with Francis I, his rival in the struggle for hegemony in Europe. At the request of the Elector of Saxony, Luther was allowed to attend and defend himself at the Reichstag in Worms (April 1521). He was found guilty, and since he refused to renounce his views, Imperial disgrace was imposed on him and his followers by imperial edict. However, by order of the Elector, Luther was intercepted on the way by the knights and placed for his safety in a remote castle in Wartburg. During the war against Francis I, with whom the Pope entered into an alliance, which became the cause of the famous sack of Rome (1527), the emperor could not or did not want to complete the cause of Luther for almost 10 years. During this period, the changes advocated by Luther came into practice not only in the Saxon Electorship, but also in many states of Central and North-East Germany.

While Luther was in his enforced seclusion, the cause of the Reformation was threatened by serious unrest and devastating raids on churches and monasteries at the instigation of the "Zwickau prophets." These religious fanatics claimed to be inspired by the Bible (they were joined by Luther's friend Karlstadt, one of the first to adopt the Protestant faith). Returning to Wittenberg, Luther crushed the fanatics with the power of eloquence and his authority, and the Elector of Saxony drove them out of his state. The "prophets" were the forerunners of the Anabaptists, an anarchist movement within the Reformation. The most fanatical of them, in their program of establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, called for the abolition of class privileges and the socialization of property.

Thomas Münzer, leader of the "Zwickau prophets", also participated in the Peasant War, a major uprising that engulfed Southwest Germany like wildfire in 1524-1525. The cause of the uprising was the age-old unbearable oppression and exploitation of the peasants, which occasionally caused bloody revolts. Ten months after the start of the uprising, a manifesto was promulgated ( Twelve Articles) of Swabian peasants, drawn up by several clergymen who sought to draw the attention of the party of reformers to the cause of the peasants. To this end, in addition to a summary of peasant demands, new points were included in the manifesto, which were advocated by the reformers (for example, the election of a pastor by the community and the use of tithing for the maintenance of the pastor and the needs of the community). All other demands, which were of an economic and social nature, were supported by quotations from the Bible as the highest and last authority. Luther addressed both the nobles and the peasants with admonition, reproaching the former for oppressing the poor and urging the latter to follow the instruction of the Apostle Paul: "Let every soul be submissive to the higher authorities." He further called on both sides to make mutual concessions and restore peace. But the rebellion continued, and Luther in a new conversion Against gangs of peasants sowing murder and robbery called on the nobles to crush the uprising: "Anyone who can, must beat, strangle, stab them."

Luther was blamed for the unrest perpetrated by the "prophets," Anabaptists, and peasants. Undoubtedly, his preaching of gospel freedom against human tyranny inspired the "Zwickau prophets" and was used by the leaders of the Peasant War. This experience undermined Luther's naive expectation that his preaching of freedom from slavery to the Law would force people to act with a sense of duty to society. He abandoned the original idea of ​​creating a Christian church, independent of secular authorities, and now inclined to the idea of ​​placing the church under the direct control of the state, which has the power and authority to curb movements and sects that deviate from the truth, i.e. from his own interpretation of the gospel of freedom.

The freedom of action granted to the reform party by the political situation made it possible not only to spread the movement to other German states and free cities, but also to develop a clear management structure and forms of worship for the reformed church. Monasteries - male and female - were abolished, and monks and nuns were freed from all ascetic vows. Church estates were confiscated and used for other purposes. At the Reichstag in Speyer (1526), ​​the Protestant group was already so large that the assembly, instead of demanding the implementation of the Edict of Worms, decided to maintain the status quo and give the princes freedom to choose their religion until an ecumenical council was convened.

The emperor himself cherished the hope that an ecumenical council held in Germany and determined to carry out urgent reforms would be able to restore religious peace and unity in the empire. But Rome feared that the council being held in Germany, under the existing circumstances, might get out of control, as happened with the Basle Cathedral (1433). After defeating the French king and his allies, during the lull before the resumption of conflict, Charles finally decided to tackle the problem of religious peace in Germany. In an effort to reach a compromise, the imperial Reichstag, convened in Augsburg in June 1530, demanded from Luther and his followers to present to the public a statement of their faith and the reforms they insisted on. This document, edited by Melanchthon and titled Augsburg Confession (Confessio augustana), was clearly conciliatory in tone. He denied any intention of the reformers to separate from the Roman Catholic Church or to change any essential point of the Catholic faith. The reformers insisted only on curbing abuses and abolishing what they considered to be erroneous interpretations of the teachings and canons of the church. They attributed the communion of the laity to abuses and delusions only under one guise (consecrated bread); attribution to the mass of the nature of the sacrifice; obligatory celibacy (celibacy) for priests; mandatory confession and the existing practice of its conduct; rules regarding fasting and food restrictions; principles and practice of monastic and ascetic life; and, finally, the divine authority ascribed to Church Tradition.

The sharp rejection of these demands by Catholics and the bitter, inconsistent polemics between theologians of both parties have clearly shown that the gap between their positions can no longer be closed. To restore unity, there was only one way - a return to the use of force. The Emperor and the majority of the Reichstag, with the approval of the Catholic Church, made it possible for the Protestants to return to the fold of the church until April 1531. To prepare for the struggle, Protestant princes and cities formed the Schmalkalden League and began negotiations for assistance with England, where Henry VIII rebelled against the papacy, with Denmark, which accepted the Luther's Reformation, and with the French king, whose political antagonism with Charles V prevailed over all religious considerations.

In 1532, the emperor agreed to an armistice for 6 months, since he was drawn into the fight against Turkish expansion in the east and in the Mediterranean, but soon the war with France and the uprising in the Netherlands swallowed up all his attention, and only in 1546 he was able to return to the German business. Meanwhile, Pope Paul III (1534-1549) succumbed to pressure from the emperor and convened a council in Tiente (1545). The invitation to the Protestants was scornfully rejected by Luther and other leaders of the Reformation, who could expect only sweeping condemnation from the council.

Determined to crush all opponents, the emperor outlawed the leading Protestant princes and began military action. Having won a decisive victory at Mühlberg (April 1547), he forced them to surrender. But the task of restoring Catholic faith and discipline in Protestant Germany proved almost impossible. The compromise in matters of faith and church organization, dubbed the Augsburg Interim (May 1548), proved unacceptable to either the Pope or the Protestants. Yielding to pressure, the latter agreed to send their representatives to the cathedral, which, after a break, resumed work in Tiente in 1551, but the situation changed overnight when Moritz, Duke of Saxon, went over to the side of the Protestants and moved his army to Tyrol, where Charles V. The emperor was forced to sign a peace treaty at Passau (1552) and stop fighting. In 1555, the Augsburg Religious Peace was concluded, according to which the Protestant Churches, which accepted Augsburg Confession, received legal recognition on the same basis as the Roman Catholic Church. This recognition did not extend to other Protestant sects. The principle "cuius regio, eius religio" ("whose power, that and faith") was taken as the basis of a new order: in every German state, the religion of the sovereign became the religion of the people. Catholics in Protestant states and Protestants in Catholic states were given the right to choose: either join the local religion, or move with their property to the territory of their religion. The right to choose and the obligation for citizens of cities to practice the religion of the city extended to free cities. The Augsburg religious world was a heavy blow to Rome. The Reformation took hold, and the hope of reestablishing Catholicism in Protestant Germany faded.

Switzerland.

Soon after Luther's revolt against indulgences, Huldrich Zwingli (1484-1531), priest of the cathedral in Zurich, began to criticize indulgences and "Roman superstitions" in his sermons. The Swiss cantons, although nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, were in reality independent states, united in an alliance for common defense, and were governed by a council elected by the people. Having achieved the support of the city authorities of Zurich, Zwingli could already easily introduce there a reformed system of church organization and worship.

After Zurich, the Reformation began in Basel and then in Bern, St. Gallen, Graubünden, Wallis and other cantons. The Catholic cantons, led by Lucerne, made every effort to prevent the further spread of the movement, as a result of which a religious war broke out, which ended the so-called. The first Kappel Peace Agreement (1529), which guaranteed freedom of religion for each canton. However, in the Second Kappel War, the Protestant army was defeated at the Battle of Kappel (1531), in which Zwingli himself fell. The Second Peace of Kappel, concluded after that, restored Catholicism in the cantons with a mixed population.

Zwingli's theology, although he shared Luther's fundamental principle of justification by faith alone, differed in many respects from Luther's theology, and the two reformers never came to an agreement. For this reason, and also because of the dissimilarity of political situations, the Reformation in Switzerland and Germany took different paths.

The Reformation was first introduced in Geneva in 1534 by the French refugee Guillaume Farel (1489–1565). Another Frenchman, Jean Calvin (1509-1564) from the Picardy city of Noyon, became interested in the ideas of the Reformation while studying theology in Paris. In 1535 he visited Strasbourg, then Basel, and finally spent several months in Italy at the court of the Duchess Renata of Ferrara, who sympathized with the Reformation. On the way back from Italy in 1536, he stopped in Geneva, where he settled at the insistence of Farel. However, after two years he was expelled from the city and returned to Strasbourg, where he taught and preached. During this period, he established close relationships with some of the leaders of the Reformation, and above all with Melanchthon. In 1541, at the invitation of the magistrate, he returned to Geneva, where he gradually concentrated all power in the city in his hands and, through the consistory, managed spiritual and secular affairs until the end of his life in 1564.

Although Calvin started out on the principle of justification by faith alone, his theology developed in a different direction from that of Luther. His concept of the church also did not coincide with the ideas of the German reformer. In Germany, the formation of a new organization of the church proceeded in a random, unplanned way under the influence of the "Zwickau prophets", at that time Luther was in the Wartburg castle. On his return, Luther expelled the "prophets", but found it prudent to authorize some of the changes already made, although some of them seemed too radical to him at the time. Calvin, on the other hand, planned the organization of his church, guided by the Bible, and intending to reproduce the structure of the original church in the form in which it can be represented on the basis of the New Testament. He drew from the Bible the principles and norms of secular government and introduced them in Geneva. Fanatically intolerant of other people's opinions, Calvin expelled all dissenting people from Geneva and sentenced Michel Servetus to be burned at the stake for his anti-Trinitarian ideas.

England.

In England, the activities of the Roman Catholic Church have long caused strong discontent among all classes of society, which manifested itself in repeated attempts to curb these abuses. Wycliffe's revolutionary ideas for the church and the papacy attracted many supporters, and although the Lollard movement, inspired by his teachings, was severely suppressed, it did not completely disappear.

However, the British uprising against Rome was not the work of the reformers and was not caused by theological considerations. Henry VIII, a devout Catholic, took harsh measures against the penetration of Protestantism into England, he even wrote a treatise on the sacraments (1521), in which he refuted the teachings of Luther. Fearing a mighty Spain, Henry wanted to conclude an alliance with France, but met an obstacle in the person of his Spanish wife, Catherine of Aragon; among other things, she never gave birth to an heir to the throne, and the legality of this marriage was in doubt. That is why the king asked the pope to annul the marriage so that he could marry Anne Boleyn, but the pope refused to give permission for divorce, and this convinced the king that in order to strengthen his power he needed to get rid of the pope's interference in his affairs. ... To the Vatican's threat to excommunicate Henry VIII from the church, he responded with the Act of Supremacy (1534), in which the monarch was recognized as the supreme head of the Church of England, not subordinate to either the Pope or other ecclesiastical authorities. Refusal to take the "oath of supremacy" of the king was punishable by death, among those executed were Bishop John Fisher of Rochester and former Chancellor Sir Thomas More. Apart from the abolition of papal rule over the church, the liquidation of monasteries and the confiscation of their possessions and property, Henry VIII did not agree to any changes in church teachings and institutions. V Six Articles(1539) the doctrine of transubstantiation was confirmed and communion was rejected under two forms. Likewise, no concessions were made regarding the celibacy of priests, the celebration of private masses, and the practice of confession. Tough measures were taken against those who professed the Lutheran faith, many were executed, others fled to Protestant Germany and Switzerland. However, during the regency of the Duke of Somerset under the minor Edward VI Articles Henry VIII was abolished, and the Reformation began in England: (1549) and formulated 42 Articles of Faith(1552). The reign of Queen Mary (1553-1558) was marked by the restoration of Catholicism under the control of the papal legate, Cardinal Pole, but contrary to his advice, the restoration was accompanied by severe persecution of Protestants and one of the first victims was Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. The accession to the throne of Queen Elizabeth (1558) again changed the situation in favor of the Reformation. The "oath of supremacy" was restored; Articles Edward VI, after revision in 1563 called 39 articles, and Public Worship Book became the normative doctrinal and liturgical documents of the Episcopal Church of England; and the Catholics were now subjected to severe persecution.

Other European countries.

The Lutheran Reformation was introduced in the Scandinavian countries at the behest of their monarchs. By royal decrees, Sweden (1527) and Norway (1537) became Protestant powers. But in many other European countries where the sovereigns remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Scotland, the Netherlands, France), the Reformation spread widely among all classes of the population thanks to the activities of missionaries and despite the repressive measures of the government.

Among the founders of new Protestant churches in Catholic countries, emigrants from countries where freedom of conscience was denied played an important role. They managed to assert the right to freely practice their religion, despite the opposition of the religious and political authorities. In Poland, the Pax dissidentium treaty (Peace for dissidents, 1573) extended this freedom even to anti-Trinitarians, Socinians, or, as they came to be called, Unitarians, who successfully began to create their own communities and schools. In Bohemia and Moravia, where the descendants of the Hussites, the Moravian brothers, adopted the Lutheran faith and where Calvinist propaganda had great success, Emperor Rudolph II A message for peace(1609) granted all Protestants freedom of religion and control over the University of Prague. The same emperor by the Peace of Vienna (1606) recognized the freedom of the Hungarian Protestants (Lutherans and Calvinists). In the Netherlands, under Spanish rule, people who converted to Lutheranism began to appear pretty soon, but Calvinist propaganda soon took over among wealthy burghers and merchants in cities where there was a long tradition of autonomous government. Under the brutal rule of Philip II and the Duke of Alba, the authorities' attempt to destroy the Protestant movement by force and arbitrariness provoked a major national uprising against Spanish rule. The uprising led to the proclamation in 1609 of the independence of the strictly Calvinist republic of the Netherlands, with the result that only Belgium and part of Flanders remained under Spanish rule.

The longest and most dramatic struggle for the freedom of Protestant churches took place in France. In 1559, the Calvinist communities, scattered throughout the French provinces, formed a federation and held a synod in Paris, where they made Gallican confession, a symbol of their faith. By 1561, the Huguenots, as Protestants in France were called, had more than 2,000 communities with over 400,000 believers. All attempts to limit their growth have failed. The conflict soon became political and led to internal wars of religion. According to the Treaty of Saint Germain (1570), the Huguenots were granted freedom to practice their religion, civil rights, and four mighty fortresses for protection. But in 1572, after the events of St. Bartholomew's Night (August 24 - October 3), when, according to some estimates, 50,000 Huguenots died, the war broke out again and continued until 1598, when the Edict of Nantes gave French Protestants the freedom to practice their religion and citizenship rights ... The Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685, after which thousands of Huguenots emigrated to other countries.

Under the harsh rule of King Philip II and his Inquisition, Spain remained closed to Protestant propaganda. In Italy, some centers of Protestant ideas and propaganda were formed quite early in the cities in the north of the country, and later in Naples. But not a single Italian prince supported the cause of the Reformation, and the Roman Inquisition was always on the alert. Hundreds of Italian converts, which belonged almost exclusively to the educated classes, found refuge in Switzerland, Germany, England and other countries, many of them became prominent figures in the Protestant churches of these states. These included members of the clergy, such as Bishop Vergerio, a former papal legate in Germany, and Occhino, a Capuchin general. At the end of the 16th century. the whole of northern Europe became Protestant, in addition, large Protestant communities flourished in all Catholic states, with the exception of Spain and Italy. HUGENOTS.

THEOLOGY OF REFORMATION

The theological structure of Protestantism, created by the reformers, rests on three fundamental principles that unite them despite the different interpretations of these principles. These are: 1) the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide), regardless of the performance of good deeds and any external sacred rites; 2) the principle of sola scriptura: Scripture contains the Word of God, which addresses directly the soul and conscience of a Christian and is the highest authority in matters of faith and church worship, regardless of church Tradition and any church hierarchy; 3) the teaching that the church, which forms the mystical body of Christ, is an invisible community of chosen Christians, predestined for salvation. The Reformers argued that these teachings are contained in Scripture and that they represent true divine revelation, distorted and forgotten in the process of dogmatic and institutional degeneration that led to the Roman Catholic system.

Luther arrived at the doctrine of justification by faith alone based on his own spiritual experience. Having become a monk in his early youth, he zealously observed all the ascetic requirements of the monastery charter, but over time he discovered that, despite his desire and sincere constant efforts, he was still far from perfect, so that he even doubted the possibility of his salvation. He was helped out of the crisis by the Epistle to the Romans of the Apostle Paul: he found in it a statement that he developed in his teaching on justification and salvation by faith without the help of good works. Luther's experience was nothing new in the history of Christian spiritual life. Paul himself constantly experienced an internal struggle between the ideal of a perfect life and the stubborn resistance of the flesh, he also found refuge in faith in divine grace given to people by the redemptive deed of Christ. Christian mystics of all times, losing courage due to the weakness of the flesh and experiencing pangs of conscience due to their sinfulness, have found peace and comfort in the act of absolute trust in the efficacy of Christ's merit and divine mercy.

Luther was familiar with the writings of Jean Gerson and German mystics. Their influence on the early version of his doctrine is second only to that of Paul. There is no doubt that the principle of justification by faith and not by works of the Law is the true teaching of Paul. But it is also clear that Luther is imparting more to the words of the apostle Paul than they actually contain. According to the understanding of the teachings of Paul, inherent in the Latin patristic tradition beginning at least with Augustine, a person who, as a result of the fall of Adam, lost the ability to do good and even desire it, cannot independently attain salvation. The salvation of man is entirely the action of God. Faith is the first step in this process, and this very faith in Christ's redemptive feat is a gift from God. Faith in Christ means not just trust in Christ, but trust accompanied by trust in and love for Christ, or, in other words, it is active, not passive, faith. Faith by which a person is justified, i.e. with the help of which a person's sins are forgiven and he is made justified in the eyes of God, there is an active faith. Justification by faith in Christ means that a change has taken place in the human soul, the human will, with the help of divine grace, acquired the ability to want and do good, and therefore to advance along the path of righteousness with the help of good deeds.

Starting with Pavlov's distinction between the spiritual, or inner man (homo interior) and the material, outer man (homo exterior), Luther came to the conclusion that the spiritual, inner man is reborn in faith and, being united with Christ, is freed from any bondage and earthly chains. Faith in Christ gives him freedom. To obtain righteousness, he needs only one thing: the holy word of God, the gospel (gospel) of Christ. To describe this oneness of the inner man with Christ, Luther uses two comparisons: spiritual marriage and a red-hot iron with fire inside. In spirit marriage, the soul and Christ exchange their possessions. The soul brings its sins, Christ - his infinite merits, which the soul now partly owns; sins are destroyed. The inner man, through the imputation of Christ's merits to the soul, is established in his righteousness in the eyes of God. Then it becomes obvious that the works that affect and are related to the external person have nothing to do with salvation. Not by deeds, but by faith, we glorify and confess the true God. Logically, this teaching seems to imply the following: if for salvation there is no need for good deeds and sins, together with the punishment for them, are destroyed by an act of faith in Christ, then there is no longer any need for respect for the entire moral order of Christian society, for the very existence of morality. Luther's distinction between the inner and the outer man helps to avoid such a conclusion. The external person, living in the material world and belonging to the human community, is bound by a strict obligation to do good deeds, and not because he can deduce from them any merit that can be imputed to the internal person, but because he must promote growth and improving community life in the new Christian kingdom of divine grace. The individual must commit himself to the good of the community so that saving faith can spread. Christ frees us not from the obligation to do good deeds, but only from the vain and empty confidence in their usefulness for salvation.

Luther's theory that sin is not imputed to the sinner who believes in Christ and that he is justified by imputing the merits of Christ despite his own sins is based on the premises of the medieval theological system of Duns Scotus, which underwent further development in the teachings of Ockham and the entire nominalist school. within which the views of Luther were formed. In the theology of Thomas Aquinas and his school, God was understood as the Supreme Reason, and the aggregate being and life process in the Universe were thought of as a rational chain of cause and effect, the first link of which is God. The theological school of nominalism, on the other hand, saw in God a Higher Will, not bound by any logical necessity. This implied the arbitrariness of divine will, in which things and actions are good or bad, not because there is an internal reason why they should be good or bad, but only because God wants them to be good or bad. To say that something done by divine command is unjust implies the imposition of human limits on God in terms of just and unjust.

From the point of view of nominalism, Luther's theory of justification does not seem as irrational as it appears from the point of view of intellectualism. The exceptionally passive role that man plays in the process of salvation led Luther to a more rigid understanding of predestination. His view of salvation is more rigidly deterministic than that of Augustine. The reason for everything is the supreme and absolute will of God, and to it we cannot apply the moral or logical criteria of the limited reason and human experience.

But how can Luther prove that the process of justification by faith alone is authorized by God? Of course, the Word of God, which is found in Scripture, gives the surety. But, according to the interpretation of these biblical texts given by the fathers and teachers of the church (i.e., according to Tradition) and the official teaching (magisterium) of the church, only active faith, manifested in good works, justifies and saves a person. Luther argued that the Spirit is the only interpreter of Scripture; in other words, the individual judgment of every Christian believer is free through his union with Christ through faith.

Luther did not consider the words of Scripture to be infallible and recognized that there are distortions of facts, contradictions and exaggerations in the Bible. About the third chapter of the Book of Genesis (which speaks of the fall of Adam), he said that it contains "the most improbable tale." In fact, Luther made a distinction between Scripture and the Word of God found in Scripture. Scripture is only the outward and error-prone form of God's infallible Word.

Luther adopted the canon of the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament and, following Jerome's example, classified the books added to the Christian Old Testament as apocryphal. But the reformer went further than Jerome and removed these books from the Protestant Bible altogether. During his forced stay in the Wartburg, he worked on the translation of the New Testament into German (published in 1522). He then proceeded to translate the Old Testament and in 1534 published the full text of the Bible in German. From a literary point of view, this monumental work marks a turning point in the history of German literature. It cannot be said that it was the work of Luther alone, because he worked in close cooperation with his friends, and above all with Melanchthon; nevertheless, it was Luther who introduced into the translation his exceptional sense of the word.

Luther's principle of justification by faith alone, which reduced the mystery of salvation to the emotional experience of the inner man and eliminated the need for good works, had far-reaching consequences for the nature and structure of the church. First of all, he annulled the spiritual content and meaning of the entire system of sacraments. Further, with the same blow, Luther deprived the priesthood of its main function - the administration of the sacraments. Another function of the priesthood (sacerdotium, literally, priesthood) was the function of teaching, and this was also abolished because the reformer denied the authority of the Church Tradition and the teaching of the Church. As a result, there was no longer anything to justify having a priesthood institution.

In Catholicism, the priest, thanks to his spiritual authority received during ordination (ordination), has a monopoly on certain sacraments, which are channels of divine grace and as such are necessary for salvation. This sacramental power raises the priest above the laity and makes him a sacred person, a mediator between God and man. Such sacramental authority does not exist in Luther's system. In the mystery of justification and salvation, every Christian deals directly with God and achieves mystical union with Christ through his faith. Every Christian is made a priest through his faith. Deprived of the sacramental authority of her teaching and her priesthood, the entire institutional structure of the church falls apart. Paul taught salvation through faith, but at the same time through membership in the charismatic community, the church (ecclesia), the Body of Christ. Where is this ecclesia, Luther asked, is this the Body of Christ? This, he argued, is the invisible community of the chosen believers, destined for salvation. And as far as the visible assembly of believers is concerned, it is simply a human organization that takes different forms at different times. The ministry of a priest is not some kind of dignity that endows him with special powers or marks him with an indelible spiritual seal, but simply a certain function, which consists primarily in the preaching of the Word of God.

It was more difficult for Luther to reach a satisfactory solution to the problem of the sacraments. Three of them (baptism, the Eucharist and repentance) could not be discarded, since they are referred to in the Scriptures. Luther hesitated and constantly changed his point of view, both with respect to their meaning and with respect to their place in the theological system. In the case of repentance, Luther does not mean the confession of sins to the priest and the forgiveness of these sins by him, which he completely rejected, but an external sign of forgiveness already received through faith and through the imputation of Christ's merits. Later, however, not finding a satisfactory meaning for the existence of this sign, he completely abandoned repentance, leaving only baptism and the Eucharist. At first, he recognized that baptism is a kind of grace-filled channel through which the faith of the recipient of grace is certified in the forgiveness of sins promised by the Christian gospel. However, infant baptism does not fit into this concept of the sacrament. Moreover, since both original sin and committed sins are destroyed only as a result of the direct imputation of the merits of Christ to the soul, baptism in the Luther system has lost the vital function ascribed to it in the theology of Augustine and in Catholic theology. In the end, Luther abandoned his previous position and began to argue that baptism is necessary only because it was commanded by Christ.

With regard to the Eucharist, Luther unhesitatingly rejected the sacrificial nature of the Mass and the dogma of transubstantiation, but literally interpreting the words of the establishment of the Eucharist (“This is My Body”, “This is My Blood”), he firmly believed in the real, physical presence of the body of Christ and his blood in the substances of the Eucharist (bread and wine). The substance of bread and wine does not disappear, it is replaced by the Body and Blood of Christ, as the Catholic doctrine teaches, but the Body and Blood of Christ permeates the substance of bread and wine or is superimposed on it. This Lutheran teaching was not supported by other reformers who, taking into account the premises of their theological systems more consistently, interpreted the words of the establishment of the Eucharist in a symbolic sense and viewed the Eucharist as a remembrance of Christ with only symbolic meaning.

Luther's theological system is outlined in many of his polemical writings. Its main provisions were clearly outlined already in the treatise Freedom of a Christian (De libertate christiana 1520) and subsequently elaborated in detail in many theological works, written mainly under the fire of criticism of his opponents and in the heat of controversy. A systematic account of Luther's early theology is contained in the work of his close friend and advisor Philip Melanchthon - Basic truths of theology (Loci communes rerum theologicarum, 1521). In later editions of this book, Melanchthon departed from Luther's views. He believed that human will cannot be considered completely passive in the process of justification and that her consent to the word of God is an indispensable factor. He also rejected Luther's doctrine of the Eucharist, preferring its symbolic interpretation.

Zwingli also disagreed with Luther on these and other points of his theology. He took a more decisive position than Luther, both in affirming Scripture as the only authority, and in recognizing as obligatory only what is written in the Bible. His ideas regarding the structure of the church and the form of worship were also more radical.

The most significant work of the Reformation was (Institutio religionis christianae) Calvin. The first edition of this book contained a detailed exposition of the new doctrine of salvation. This was mainly the teaching of Luther with minor changes. In subsequent editions (the last one was published in 1559), the volume of the book increased, and the result was a compendium containing a complete and systematic presentation of the theology of Protestantism. Departing from Luther's system on many key points, Calvin's system, which is characterized by logical consistency and amazing ingenuity in the interpretation of Scripture, led to the creation of a new independent Reformed church, which differed both in its teachings and organizationally from the Lutheran church.

Calvin retained Luther's fundamental doctrine of justification by faith alone, but if Luther subordinated all other theological conclusions to this doctrine at the cost of inconsistencies and compromises, then Calvin, on the contrary, subordinated his soteriological doctrine (the doctrine of salvation) to a higher unifying principle and inscribed it in the logical structure of the doctrine and religious practice. In his exposition, Calvin begins with the problem of authority, which Luther "confused" with his distinction between the word of God and Scripture and his arbitrary application of this distinction. According to Calvin, man has an innate "sense of divinity" (sensus divinitatis), but the knowledge of God and his will is revealed completely in Scripture, which is therefore from beginning to end the infallible "norm of eternal truth" and the source of faith.

Together with Luther, Calvin believed that by doing good deeds, a person does not acquire merit, the reward for which is salvation. Justification is “acceptance, according to which God, who has received us into grace, considers us justified,” and this entails the forgiveness of sins by imputing the righteousness of Christ. But like Paul, he believed that faith that justifies becomes effective through love. This means that justification is inseparable from sanctification and that Christ does not justify anyone whom he does not sanctify. Thus, justification presupposes two stages: first, the act in which God accepts the believer as justified, and second, the process in which, through the action of the Spirit of God in him, a person is sanctified. In other words, good works do not contribute in any way to justification that saves, but they necessarily follow from justification. To keep the moral system from decaying by deducing good works from the mystery of salvation, Luther appeals to the obligations of community life, to the purely human motive of convenience. Calvin sees in good works a necessary consequence of justification and an unmistakable sign that it has been achieved.

This teaching, and the related teaching of predestination, should be viewed in the context of Calvin's concept of God's universal plan for the universe. The highest attribute of God is his omnipotence. All created things have only one reason for existence - God, only one function - to increase his glory. All events are predetermined by him and his glory; the creation of the world, the fall of Adam, redemption by Christ, salvation and eternal destruction are all part of his divine plan. Augustine, and with him the entire Catholic tradition, recognize the predestination to salvation, but reject its opposite - the predestination to eternal destruction. Accepting it is tantamount to saying that God is the cause of evil. According to Catholic teaching, God infallibly foresees and irrevocably predetermines all future events, but a person is free to accept grace and choose good, or reject grace and create evil. God wants everyone, without exception, to be worthy of eternal bliss; no one is ultimately predestined either to perdition or to sin. From eternity, God foresaw the incessant torment of the wicked and predetermined the punishment of hell for their sins, but at the same time he tirelessly offers sinners the grace-filled grace of conversion and does not bypass those who are not predestined for salvation.

Calvin, however, was not embarrassed by the theological determinism implied in his concept of the absolute omnipotence of God. Predestination is "the eternal decrees of God by means of which he decides for himself what should become of each individual person." Salvation and destruction are two integral parts of the divine plan, to which human concepts of good and evil are not applicable. For some, eternal life in heaven is predetermined, so that they become witnesses of divine mercy; for others - eternal destruction in hell, so that they become witnesses of the incomprehensible justice of God. Both heaven and hell reveal and contribute to the glory of God.

There are two sacraments in Calvin's system - baptism and the Eucharist. The meaning of baptism is that children are accepted into an alliance-contract with God, although they will understand the meaning of this only at a more mature age. Baptism corresponds to circumcision in the Old Testament union-treaty. In the Eucharist, Calvin rejects not only the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but also the doctrine of the real, physical presence, accepted by Luther, as well as the simple symbolic interpretation of Zwingli. For him, the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist is understood only in the spiritual plane, it is not mediated physically or materially by the Spirit of God in the spirit of people.

Theologians of the Reformation did not question all the tenets of the first five ecumenical councils regarding the Trinitarian and Christological teachings. The innovations that they introduced concern primarily the areas of soteriology and ecclesiology (doctrine of the church). The exception was the radicals of the left wing of the reform movement - antitrinitarians (Servetus and Socinians).

The various churches that have arisen as a result of disagreements within the main branches of the Reformation have nevertheless remained true, at least in significant respects, to three theological doctrines. These offshoots from Lutheranism, and to a greater extent from Calvinism, differ from each other mainly in institutional rather than religious matters. The Anglican Church, the most conservative of them, has retained the episcopal hierarchy and ordination, and with them traces of a charismatic understanding of the priesthood. Scandinavian Lutheran churches are also built on an episcopal basis. Presbyterian Church (M., 1992
Luther M. The Time of Silence is Over: Selected Works of 1520-1526... Kharkov, 1992
History of Europe from ancient times to the present day, vols. 1 – 8.Vol. 3: (late 15th - first half of the 17th century.). M., 1993
Christianity. encyclopedic Dictionary, vols. 1-3. M., 1993-1995
Medieval Europe Through the Eyes of Contemporaries and Historians: A Book to Read, hh. 1 – 5. Part 4: From the middle ages to modern times... M., 1994
Luther M. Selected works... SPb, 1997
Porozovskaya B.D. Martin Luther: His Life and Reform Activities... SPb, 1997
Calvin J. Instruction in the Christian Faith, vols. I – II. M., 1997-1998